Sometimes I don’t think people see too clearly. That’s not good when certain major aspects of a society have gone off the rails for several generations now. Corporate America has had things tilted in their favor so long no one sees how out of kilter they are. Drug prices are 10 – 50 times what they are in Mexico because our big pharma lobbyists (the single largest lobbying concern) have paid Congress to make it that way. Years ago I did a post based on an USA Today article from 2013 showing how roughly 546 people in the world owned 50% of the wealth.

That figure has now shrunk to the 8 richest people. That’s nuts. I’m not arguing against a free market, I’m arguing for one. I don’t think we have a free market, I think we have a slave market. I’m suggesting government and business have colluded to put labor at a severe disadvantage. I’m suggesting the working man has the deck stacked against him. I mean for God’s sake, that’s why K Street exists, to buy an advantage. They don’t give billions each year to Congress because they like them, they expect something. A bang for their buck.

In 1955 the median income for the typical worker was around $4,418. Forbes says the typical CEO made 20 times what the worker did in 1955. I’ve also seen 30:1 thrown out a few times as a common ratio in the 1950s, but 20:1 seems the majority of opinion. Using that ratio (20:1) and rounding up the worker salary to $5,000, that puts the average CEO in the 1950s making $100,000. Using an inflation calculator, that puts a typical annual salary today at $47,425. CEO pay adjusted for inflation would be $948,514.

While $47K is a typical good salary today, $950K is not even close to what a CEO makes. $12.1 – $14.3 million is a common quoted figure for CEO salary. CNBC has it at $15.5 million a year. That doesn’t begin to cover all the angles. That’s where a more accurate “compensation package” figure comes in. One that includes retirement, life insurance, stock options, incentives and a host of other items. These same sites all seem to agree 300 times is what a CEO now makes compared to the line worker. 300 x. In the 1950s it was 20 x.

There are a couple of other factors that further prove the point. In the 1950s corporation paid dividends to shareholders. Historically this was 4% to 6%. Companies don’t pay dividends for the most part nowadays. The few that do think they’re doing us a big favor with 1.5% to 2%. The average for the ones who do on the S&P 500 being 1.5%. People are being played for fools. Its not a Left/Right thing, its both.

My main beef with people is they have been swallowing the ‘company’ line for so long they believe the crap they’re being told. Perhaps the best figure I’ve come up with is the one for the rarified atmosphere of the top CEOs, $300,000,000. That 1 salary split up would  take 60,000,000 minimum wage workers from $7.25 an hour to $12.25. Taking them from a minimum wage to a living wage. 1 man.