Private equity and oil company CEO pay is ridiculously high, at a time when ordinary Americans can't get a job at all, or are forced to work for peanuts compared to the CEO's surf n turf. Schwarzman, CEO of the Blackstone private equity group, made $702 million last year. That's almost $2 million a day! Meantim, almost 10% of Americans have no job at all. This man takes home an obscene pay package of three-quarters of a billion dollars in one year. Second on the list is Oracle's CEO Larry Ellison, who got $557 million. See Campbell, Schwarzman's $702 million tops list of best-paid executives, Bloomberg.com (Aug 13, 2009).
Something is plainly out of whack when this kind of disparity occurs. It's shameful that we have dismantled the protective system of unions that once gave workers across the economy power to unite and claim for themselves some of the bounty of their hard work. Now, the CEOs get it all, and then reneg on even the meager promises they made to workers by taking away health care and other benefits or moving jobs offshore. It's time for Congress to act. It could start by passing legislation taxing the "two and twenty" carry of equity funds and hedge funds as compensation.
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