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Talk:Executive compensation in the United States/Archives/2012

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Origin

This article was based on Executive pay with many, many changes. --204.169.161.1 (talk) 14:48, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

The defense section is a little thin and I will be working to expand it in the coming days. --204.169.161.1 (talk) 21:47, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Compensation and benefits article

Hope to reorganize the article in connection with Compensation and benefits Employee compensation in the United States article, i.e. make the article more of a "executive pay differs with pay for other employees in the US with ...." --BoogaLouie (talk) 23:35, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

citation needed?

ENeville added a {{fact}} here to the first sentence


Executive pay in the United States differs from other employee compensation in the forms it takes, laws and regulation it is subject to, its dramatic rise over the past three decades, and wide ranging criticism leveled against it.[citation needed]

But the lead goes on to say ...

In the past three decades executive pay in the United States has risen dramatically beyond what can be explained by changes in firm size, performance, and industry classification.[1] It is the highest in the world in both absolute terms and relative to median salary in the US.[2][3] It has been criticized not only as excessive, but also for "rewarding failure"[4]—including massive drops in stock price.[5] Federal laws and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations have been developed on compensation for top senior executives in the last few decades,[6] including a $1 million limit on the tax deductibility of compensation [7] not "performance-based", and a requirement to include the dollar value of compensation in a standardized form in annual public filings of the corporation.[8][9][10] Observers differ as to how much of the rise in and nature of this compensation is a natural result of competition for scarce business talent benefiting stockholder value, and how much is the work of manipulation and self-dealing by management unrelated to supply, demand, or reward for performance.[11][12]

... Which would seem to give evidence and sources for the first sentence. --BoogaLouie (talk) 20:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I've looked at this further and made a few more changes, but I'm not seeing support for the specific points. For background, I note that the first sentence has multiple challengeable statements, and per WP:LEADCITE these should be cited, probably individually. For instance, "wide ranging criticism" should be backed up by a source describing wide ranging criticism. I looked again/carefully for support of these specific points in the rest of the lead and didn't see indication, although some sources are books that I don't have and they may prove appropriate sources. I did plug in a citation for a source that looked appropriate re differing legal status, but I didn't see ones for the others, which I tagged individually. Per WP:LEADCITE, the first sentence's point about payment differing in form may not be contentious enough to warrant a citation in the lead, so I didn't mark it for such, but it might be beneficial to have one anyway. ENeville (talk) 17:36, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
You aren't a lawyer by any chance are you? Just curious.
OK, taking the first phrase you put a "fact" label on -- executive pay has had a "dramatic rise over the past three decades" -- Googling the words executive pay dramatic rise I get 29 million hits. You know, it would almost seem easier to take one of those hits and make it into a citation than to put {{fact}} label on the phrase. I mean, whether you think it terrible or wonderful, few would deny that a rise of executive pay from 30-40 times average work pay to 200+ times is .... "dramatic"! --BoogaLouie (talk) 22:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Your next {{fact}} label was on "wide ranging criticism leveled against it", i.e. against executive pay in the US. So we have
Paul Krugman (nobel prize winner): "Today the idea that huge paychecks are part of a beneficial system in which executives are given an incentive to perform well has become something of a sick joke." (Krugman's book)
Peter Drucker (as famous a management consultant as there was): "Peter Drucker had an intense loathing of exorbitant executive salaries." businessweek
John C. Bogle has gone to the trouble of writing essays on the problems of executive pay Reflections on CEO Compensation by John C. Bogle
and then there's Ben Bernanke, George W. Bush and Warren Buffett. All notable and knowledgeable (well except Bush). So if you don't like "wide ranging", what would meet your requirements? --BoogaLouie (talk) 23:00, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
PS, I am working on an overhaul of this article. --BoogaLouie (talk) 23:22, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I'm raising valid points per guidelines, and it doesn't take much conjecture to figure that many readers will be asking the same questions. And I don't see the relevance of being or not being a lawyer by profession: we're all benefited by access to the truth, by description and by linking for further information, and we all have a right to pursue and expose that truth.
The relevant guideline practices are major underpinnings of the informational value of WP. Per WP:WHYCITE, the point is verification. And per WP:LEADCITE, major statements like these should be cited in the lead so readers don't need to hunt for citations. We're not expecting people to do a web search for facts on WP. And if making a citation is so easy, easier than putting on a fact tag, then it certainly must be easier than posting about how easy it is. But pointing fingers is a long road to nowhere, particularly on a volunteer project like WP. We're all doing what we can to improve things. Incrementally, but as afforded.
Re "wide ranging criticism ," I'm not saying that it shouldn't be there, simply that it should be cited. I'd say that if at least three sources with individual critics, such as offered, are cited that it would constitute verification of wide ranging criticism. Or just one source that references wide ranging criticism. Or a combination. The article will be better for it, and WP generally. ENeville (talk) 18:29, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

additions to article

Added this. which I have been working on for months. Has copious citations and a major source is Pay without Performance by Bebchuk et. al.--BoogaLouie (talk) 23:07, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

  1. ^ Bebchuk, Lucian; Grinstein, Yaniv (April 2005). "The Growth of Executive Pay" (PDF). Harvard University: John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics and Business.
  2. ^ see, for one example, The Guardian, August 4, 2005, "US executive pay goes off the scale"
  3. ^ Hacker, Jacob S., Paul Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics, (Simon & Schuster, 2010) p.62
  4. ^ Berkshire Hathaway Inc. 2005 Annual Report p.16
  5. ^ In 2007, while shareholders suffered an 80% decline in share value, CEO of Countrywide Financial Angelo Mozilo made more than $520 million. Executive Decisions Nell Minow tnr.com| February 8, 2012
  6. ^ Executive Compensation. US Securities and Exchange Commission
  7. ^ "The principal executive officer of the corporation (or an individual acting in that capacity)"
  8. ^ *"In their annual public filings, firms must publish compensation tables indicating the dollar value of different forms of compensation received by the current CEO and the four other most highly paid executives of the firm. The numbers in these tables are the most visible indicators of executive compensation in public firms. They are easily accessible to the media and others reading the public filings. (Bebchuk and Fried, Pay Without Performance (2004), p.99)
  9. ^ Willkie Farr and Gallagher. July 22, 2008
  10. ^ "In the annual proxy statement, a company must disclose information concerning the amount and type of compensation paid to its chief executive officer, chief financial officer and the three other most highly compensated executive officers." http://www.sec.gov/answers/execomp.htm
  11. ^ Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fr. Hiied, Pay Without Performance (2004)
  12. ^ Krugman, Paul, The Conscience of a Liberal, W W Norton & Company, 2007, 143-8
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