Occupy Wall Street

I am the 99%.

I'll confess that I have not been paying a lot of attention to the Occupy Wall Street movement. My limited understanding is that they are trying to draw attention to the vast difference between the 99% of Americans and the 1% of Americans and the strange way that our entire government seems to be oriented to appeasing the 1%. I got the memo, thanks.

My personal pet peeve is corporate CEO's who profit to the tune of millions no matter how they do their job. Destroy the company, grab a golden parachute and leave. Build up the company, collect a golden parachute and a lifelong pension. Do regular workers even get pensions anymore? Rhetorical question. Of course they don't. That would cost the company profits and they need those profits to make the company more profitable...by paying more to the CEO's.

I never liked that circular logic. You have to pay the CEO's ridiculous amounts of money or you won't be able to attract good CEO's. Really? Nobody is interested in running GE for, say, $400,000/year plus benefits? I'm willing to bet they could find someone. Not to mention other countries don't seem to have this problem. CEO paychecks are not nearly as obscene in Europe and Japan and companies in those places are doing fine, even better than American companies in some situations.

Now some of you are probably thinking that we need the heavy hand of government to set things straight. And I can think of some helpful laws to pass. But what really grates me is that companies are run for the benefit of the shareholders. I'm a shareholder. I own stock in a few companies. (ok, a teeny bit). Why is my money being used to overpay a CEO? I want my dividend check.

As a shareholder, shouldn't I have my quasi-democratic right to vote at board meetings? Don't I have representation on the board of directors? Don't I have a right to sue the company if the board and CEO are acting in collusion to deprive the shareholders of value? Again, rhetorical questions. Of course I have those rights but for some strange reason those rights are not being used to promote the interests of the 99% but of the 1% (who own a lot more shares than I do).