$70,000... Talk About A Minimum Wage!
Most, if not all, of you have undoubtedly heard about Dan Price, the Seattle CEO and founder of "Gravity Payments," reducing his own million dollar salary to that of his employees, whose salaries will be $70,000, a substantial increase in pay for most of them. It will be interesting to see how this develops, but we need to give credit to this man for what he has done, and for the discussion it should prompt around the country. I saw some negative reaction to Price's actions, but I really did not note the sources, but my guess would be the negative reactions came from three sources: other CEOs or business people, or their allies on the political right, like the free marketers, who are against the very concept; those middle and lower income employees who are envious of Price's employees, and lastly, those on the political left, probably more so the far left, who seem to find fault with just about anything. To this last group, assuming I am correct that there are some on the political left who dislike Price's actions, please don't find or invent a reason to dislike or hate Dan Price, with comments like, "well he didn't do it last year," or "he didn't smile enough when he announced it." PLEASE, when someone comes to your side of an issue, or even damned close to your side, ACCEPT IT! Don't beat up on them for supporting YOUR basic position!
WORD HISTORY:
Spew-This word, related to "spit,"^ goes back to Indo European "spyu," which meant "to spit, to discharge fluid from the mouth." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "spiwanan," with the same meaning. This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "spiwan," which then became "spewen," before the modern version. The noun form developed from the verb in the late 1500s or early 1600s. Common in the other Germanic languages: German has "speien," Low German Saxon has "speen," Dutch has "spuwen," West Frisian (still has?) "spije," Danish, Norwegian and Swedish all have "spy," and Icelandic has "spýta."
^ The word with the same modern spelling, "spit," but meaning "a pointed stick used for roasting meat," is not related, as it is from a different source.
WORD HISTORY:
Spew-This word, related to "spit,"^ goes back to Indo European "spyu," which meant "to spit, to discharge fluid from the mouth." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "spiwanan," with the same meaning. This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "spiwan," which then became "spewen," before the modern version. The noun form developed from the verb in the late 1500s or early 1600s. Common in the other Germanic languages: German has "speien," Low German Saxon has "speen," Dutch has "spuwen," West Frisian (still has?) "spije," Danish, Norwegian and Swedish all have "spy," and Icelandic has "spýta."
^ The word with the same modern spelling, "spit," but meaning "a pointed stick used for roasting meat," is not related, as it is from a different source.
Labels: CEO pay, Dan Price, English, etymology, Germanic languages, Gravity Payments, income disparity, minimum wage
posted by Randy at 12:51 PM
6 Comments:
I don't really agree with what Price is doing, as selfless as it may be, because corporations need to provide incentives for people to work their way up the ladder. Corporate salaries have become outrageous, but Price's action might be too communist, for lack of a better term. Find the happy medium like Whole Foods does, capping it a million dollars or so.
I understand your point, but in a couple of interviews Price has expressed the desire for his actions to start a discussion about pay discrepancy. As I noted in my post, we'll have to see how all of this plays out, but the present situation will not see CEO pay limited in very many cases. Your suggestion of a happy medium of about a million dollar pay cap would be called 'communist' by many (I would not be one of them). Unfortunately, there aren't many 'happy mediums' or simple compromise solutions anymore.
In that case, I think you could call Price an economic activist... pulling a stunt that doesn't reflect his actual ideology, is more just to garner attention - and potentially shame fellow executives. By doing so, is he declaring himself morally superior to them? It has the capacity to be an egotistical action in that manner. Per Whole Foods, I would not actually support a one million dollar pay cap, perhaps I should have written "happier medium" instead of "happy medium". There was a recent article on Apple execs taking home a huge amount of pay, but I think you can say they've earning every penny of it based on their outstanding products and financial performance - other execs, not so much, that's for sure.
I'm for him! I don't care his motivation!
I think anything that moves working people at all levels forward is worth it. I'm all for Price! If we leave it to CEOs, nothing will happen. Public pressure and laws about directors approving these absurd CEO bonuses should be in the discussion.
I'm all for a person running their company however they like. Whether the business can sustain this or not is yet to be known. But one aspect that I haven't seen anybody mention yet is the power this man now has over these people. The employees will adapt their lifestyle to their new level and will not (at least for a while or if ever) be able to go anywhere else in the workforce making the level of salary. I'm speaking of lower skilled jobs. There is also nothing said of any caps in pay that I've seen. People hate to be capped in pay and will be frustrated as they have no other choice but to stay. Who knows what Mr. Prices expectations are? He will have a large amount of control. Sure, it all looks good on the surface but I'm really interested in seeing how this all plays out.
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