Presidental Salary

[Yamori]

Should the presidental salary be raised to CEO-levels, so that intelligent business-like people will be more inclined to run for president?

You could consider that the relatively low presidental salary (100k per year I believe) attracts only power-trippers to the job, since an extremely intelligent person could easily make more elsewhere.

Opinions?

[Tossica]

I believe the pres is paid close to $400K a year. Plus he does not have to pay for anything but taxes pretty much. His room and board, transportation, health insurance etc are all covered.

[Martrae]

I personally think a lot CEO's make way too much money. All those incentives could be translated into better pay or keeping more people working.

[mofish]

President makes 200k I believe. Still way below CEO salaries though. The idea is distasteful on some level with me. I get pissed off every time the politicians in Louisiana vote themselves raises. On the other hand, you get what you pay for I guess.

Where are your philosopher kings Plato? We could use a few

[Tossica]

He makes $400K.

[DangerPaul]

The president is a servant to the people. Since his food, room and board are covered, he should get $25,000 a year tax free. We need less greedy fuckers in charge who know what its like to work for a dollar versus asking daddy for $100.

[Martrae]

Bush makes $400,000.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/prestrivia1.html

Lower right hand side.

[Eziekial]

Is a CEO worth millions of dollars to a corporation? When Jack Welch became General Electric's CEO in 1981, the stock market judged the company to be worth about $14 billion. Through hiring and firing, buying and selling, Welch turned the company around before he retired in 2001. Today, GE is worth nearly $500 billion, making it one of the most valuable companies in the world. What's a CEO worth for providing the brains and leadership to turn a $14 billion corporation into one worth $500 billion? How about paying just a measly one-half of a percent of the increase in value? If that were the case, Welch's total compensation would have come to nearly $2.5 billion, instead of the few hundred million that he actually received.

The Gillette Co. was in the early stages of corporate death in 2001 when Jim Kilts took over as CEO. The company's stock had lost almost half of its value in two years, and sales volume and market shares of its major brands had plummeted. Between the time Kilts took over at Gillette and this year's Jan. 28 announcement of Procter & Gamble's purchase of Gillette, Gillette's market value increased by $11.3 billion, a 34 percent improvement, and since the announcement, Gillette's value has risen by another $5.7 billion.

Kilts' salary and bonuses over the past four years, totaling about $17.5 million, haven't been especially large by CEO standards. Predictably, however, Kilts' pay and particularly the size of his compensation package from the merger -- $153 million -- have been the subject of media carping, particularly in Boston, where Gillette is headquartered. This figure is indeed large, but it, added to what Gillette has paid him since 2001, makes Kilts' total compensation a mere 1.5 percent of his contribution to Gillette's value.

Here are a couple of questions to you: If you were the owner of GE, and a CEO could turn your $14 billion corporation into a $500 billion one, how much would you be willing to pay that man in salary and bonuses? Or, in the case of Jim Kilts, turning Gillette from a corporation in steep decline into one Procter & Gamble was willing to buy for $57 billion, how much would you be willing to pay?

Then, you might ask yourself: If a corporate board of directors could buy a $300 computer that could do what a CEO could do, would it pay CEOs millions of dollars? By the same token, if an NFL owner could hire a computer to make the decisions that star quarterbacks make, why would he pay some of these guys yearly compensation packages worth more than $10 million?

There's another important issue. If one company has an effective CEO, it is not the only company that would like to have him on the payroll. In order to keep him, the company must pay him enough so that he can't be lured elsewhere.
If you ask me, I know of only one class of workers who are overpaid and under worked -- college professors.


That's from http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economic ... icles.html

Salary has little to do with someone's desire to run for President. Most intelligent people simply do not want to have their lives run through the media circus and defend every aspect and decision they've made in their life.

[xaoshaen]

Salary has little to do with someone's desire to run for President. Most intelligent people simply do not want to have their lives run through the media circus and defend every aspect and decision they've made in their life.

Or try and defend themselves from smear campaigns that resort to utter fabrication of "scandals" that never actually happened. Many of the brightest individuals I know would be horrified at the though of going into politics regardless of the money involved (the actual salary involved is only a fraction of the benefits recieved. Check out the perks an ex-president or vice-president has for the rest of their lives.) The personal compromises and public over-exposure are simply anathema to many people. The individuals drawn to the limelight are rarely the people you'd choose to rule. The strength of the American constitution is its ability to harness the vices of its rulers rather than their virtues.

[Martrae]

So CEOs should be paid differently? What about my hub that made 15m a quarter for his company and never got more than his salary, which wasn't amazingly good but wasn't bad?

When the company got bought out they laid him off and lost 60m a year in revenue contract because they thought they could replace him with a couple low wage monkeys.

Just because people in the lower tiers don't have CEO next to their name doesn't mean they don't pull their weight and make money for their companies.

[Tossica]

You sound like me Martrae. Watch it, you'll turn in to a liberal.

[Martrae]

Ahh...but I think it can and should be taken care of on the local level and government doesn't need to get involved. Which is where we differ, I think.

[Tossica]

Ahh...but I think it can and should be taken care of on the local level and government doesn't need to get involved. Which is where we differ, I think.

Ok, you and your neighborhood coalition go ahead and take on corporate America. I'll be rooting for ya!

[shiraz]

If you ask me, I know of only one class of workers who are overpaid and under worked -- college professors.

I'm not sure what pool of professors you are looking at...if you mean liberal arts professors at a small college or all college professors in general. But if you are in the sciences, you are much better off going to industry than academics:

The shabby professor. Schools that don't have big graduate programs are the lowest paying of all employers in this survey, with the median salary at 4-year colleges bottoming out at $57,000. Most rewarding employers: hospitals and independent labs, where median salary is $105,000.

http://recruit.sciencemag.org/feature/salsurvey/v294i5541p396.htm

[Martrae]

Cool! A supporter!

I have paypal for donations....

[Phlegm]

$400K/yr > most ceo salaries.

Most of the money made by presidents these days are from when they leave office after their terms expired. They make most of their money from book deals and speaking engagements.

[veeneedefeesh]

and kickbacks from Haliburton

[labbats]

$400K/yr > most ceo salaries.

Most of the money made by presidents these days are from when they leave office after their terms expired. They make most of their money from book deals and speaking engagements.

My sentiments exactly. I also think it's $400k tax free.

[Phlegm]

nope, not tax free.

[brinstar]

first of all, 400k is a fat lot of money, and is much more than any human needs.

second of all, you should see the lists and lists and lists of lavish gifts the First Family gets from other countries' politicians and leaders, it's pretty sick

dig around on the net, i think smokinggun.com has some actual lists

[Narrock]

Presidential raises should be based on merit. In this case, W would have gotten serveral pay increases since taking office. Clinton on the other hand would have gotten several pay cuts, and severe ones at that.

[Diabolik]

If for some reason you are reading this comment before the one above it, don't bother reading the one above it. Your IQ will drop about 80 points.

[DangerPaul]

damn, too late

[brinstar]

Presidential raises should be based on merit. In this case, W would have gotten serveral pay increases since taking office. Clinton on the other hand would have gotten several pay cuts, and severe ones at that.

http://www.roflcopter.com

[Ciladan]

Presidential raises should be based on merit. In this case, W would have gotten serveral pay increases since taking office. Clinton on the other hand would have gotten several pay cuts, and severe ones at that.

Man this would be funny if he wasn't being serious