#304: A capital greed

Let me make one thing clear. I like capitalism. What I don’t like is greed. No, that’s not quite right. I don’t mind greed. Be as greedy as you like. What I don’t like is when one person’s greed is another person’s pain.

There you have my one big problem with capitalism. Greed without care.

Right now, few public company CEOs seem to care. Did you know that the average American public company CEO earns almost 400 times more than what his average employee earns?

CEOs weren’t always this greedy. During most of the last century, corporate leaders in America earned only about 20 to 30 times more than their average employee. By the way, the ratio is still only about 22 times in Britain, 20 times in Canada and 11 times in Japan.

I would like American-style capitalism even more if American CEOs were to lead according to ‘first do no harm’. Now that’s a capital idea.



I’m James McIntosh at nonsenseatwork.com

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