November 5, 2013
I write to voice my support for the proposed rule to require CEO pay, employee pay and the ratio between the two.
Opponents to this proposed rule are well organized and will argue that the very rule is beyond the scope of permissible SEC actions they'll make spurious arguements that the ratios may be misleading as some corporations hire seasonal workers that will skew the statisitcs, and will claim that data gathering is an onerous burden, and that we should leave it to the market to decide what is useful disclosure.
Are we to believe that large corporations in the information age do not already generate this data? Of course not. Do we think that a halloween costume store or part time gift wrapers at Christmas are responsible for the 1000 percent increae in the ratio of CEO pay to regular worker pay since 1950? Of course not. Do we believe that a representative democracy can coexist and survive with unfettered capitalism without deliberative legislative oversight? Some ideologues on the Right may think so, but I do not.
Corporations are working together to influence this comment period (including but not limited to seeking to extend the comment period to give them time to cook up damning numbers on the cost of providing the numbers). At this very moment I am attending a CLE online in which lawyers from Orrington Harrington Suttcliff are walking corporate attorneys through the process of defeating this proposed rule, and I'm disgusted.
I know, I know, "Corporations are people too" but they're not. They're a legal construct under the purview of some government agencies which ultimately derive their power from the people.