Are you kidding me!?  Capping executive pay at $500k is a joke!   Please explain to me what someone can do to be worth $500k!   How about some real salary caps for these jokers who caused this mess?  Hmm… maybe something more like $200k with the promise of a huge bonus IF they produce results?

It is sad that corporate America has put such a high value on these positions.   Frankly, many of which would not even do their jobs at all if it were not for the support staff keeping them afloat.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe people should be compensated when they produce results.  The compensation should reflect those results and that compensation should be equally distributed to that “team” not just to one individual.  That one individual could not have done their job without the assistance of a lot of other people under them.

Frankly, I believe those financial companies that took bailout money and paid out huge bonuses should not only be ashamed of themselves, they should be forced to return the money and be fired!   In case they weren’t paying attention, here goes; YOUR COMPANY WAS/IS LOSING MONEY, YOU TOOK BAILOUT MONEY, HOW DO YOU CONSIDER THAT WORTH REWARDING WITH A BONUS? 

I believe these high level officials have gotten so used to getting huge sums, they no longer know how to live on a “real” salary.  Most of them reached a point when things in the financial world started to fall apart where they said “oh no, how will we make it?”  This of course justified for them to continue to take bonuses that they no longer truly earned any more.  Many of them had developed such lavish lifestyles that they would have to give up completely without the bonuses to support them.    All I can say is, poor baby, learn to live with less, the rest of us have to!

$500k salary caps?  Give me a break!  How about salary caps which better represent the true value someone brings to the company and not the perceived value.   I strongly believe bonuses have their place, when the company is doing well and wants to share the wealth with those that made it successful.  Rewarding people for just being there and holding a high position in the company or being a ”name” of importance in the industry is just so wrong!

Lower the salary caps to about half of what they are, watch those executives work their collective asses off to truly ”earn” their bonuses in order to support a realistic lifestyle and not one which is based around the excess they have grown accustomed to. 

 Oh, and just in case someone says “the owner should be paid whatever they want to be paid” or something along those lines.  I am not referring to business owners.  Business owners (not shareholders) should pay themselves what they think they are worth.  They merely have to remember that they still have a business to run and keep running.  You drain it too much, there is nothing left to help your continuity.  I know many successful business owners who do not live lavish lifestyles and only take a salary for what they truly need to comfortably support their families.

Popularity: 45% [?]

I remember being a child, a teenager and a young adult.  What I don’t remember being was a rude, condescending, know-it-all brat that was so self-centered and/or selfish in nature adults would avoid contact with you at all costs.  I don’t remember it because it never happened, at least not to me.  Granted, I had friends who were close to being that way but even they had limits.

 Today’s teenagers and young adults seem so to be so out of touch with society and how to behave properly, it will be a surprise for them when they enter the real adult world of jobs and responsibilities.   Today’s teenagers will be surprised to realize that as they enter the adult world and want something back from it that the self-centered and selfish attitude will not serve them well at all.

 How did these kids wind up this way though?  Adults my age that I am familiar with did not start out that way and none of them even closely resembled what we see today.  Is it the parents that are to blame?   I would like to think that that is not the only factor, that there has to be more to it.  I consider myself to be a strict parent, with consequences for undesirable actions, yet, no matter how hard I try, I cannot get my own 14 year old to think about someone other than himself for even 10 seconds.  Everything he does or says is about him in some way without any regard for how his actions affect anyone around him.

Is it our schools?  I don’t know.  I would like to think that our schools have good and bad teachers, that it balances out but frankly I have run into more teachers who shouldn’t be teaching than ones who should.   Some teachers in my opinion have just turned plain lazy, especially those with tenure.  Being that our children spend so much time in front of these “adults”, could they also be emulating the attitudes of some of them?

Could it be the generation they are growing up in?  I remember as a young child, teenager and then young adult spending a significant amount of time outdoors.  Today’s kids act like it is a punishment to be sent outside!  “It’s boring!” and “there’s nothing to do” are the claims that get made at my home.  When  you do kick them outside for their own good, they would rather sit on the stoop outside the door than actually go out and find something to do!   Ride your bike to a friends house?   “But that’s a mile away!”    Oh com-on!  As a kid I easily rode a mile or two to see my best friend. 

It’s simple, children today are given too many conveniences, are entertained too much and simply put, they are a bunch of spoiled brats!  Now, before I have someone writing saying “must be your kid” or “my kid is not that way”, hear me out, I am saying most kids, not all.  If you have a perfect angel at home, consider yourself blessed by God, the rest of us are not so blessed.   Don’t get me wrong, I love my children to death, but once they reach teenagers they become self-centered selfish aliens that I just do not understand any more.

What seems to be the answer?  I don’t know.  I know that I will continue to try to pound into them that respect for themselves and others is more important a trait than any other they will possess.  I will continue to pound into them that taking pride in your work and doing the best you can is what you should expect from yourself if you expect it from others.  Finally, I will continue to strike home with the fact that they need to understand that as unimportant as they may think their actions are, they have consequences AND far reaching repercussions that affect many others and not just themselves.

Popularity: 43% [?]