Just wondering
 

I have been reading a very interesting book on the redistribution of wealth over the last thirty years or so.

It got me to wondering if anyone on here could research pilot vs. CEO pay at AMR. Specifically, what did the top earning pilot in 1982 earn compared to the CEO at the time, with and without stock options (adjusted for inflation and anything else the economy dictated, tax breaks etc. and to compare those figures with 2012 pay for both.

If anyone has more time on their hands than any reasonable person should maybe you could compare the top 50 or 100 pilots vs. the top 50 or 100 upper management.

Moderators, this is meant to be an economics question not a political one.

I thought APA produced something a few months ago that had AMR CEO pay now vs 20 years ago compared to the average pilot salary. It was similar to the rest of the country where a CEO used to make 20times the average worker salary and now it is 200 times average.

I am not sure what your treatise has to do with "redistribution" of wealth. The fact that CEO pay has escalated at a rate higher than that of the employees is not a redistribution of anybody's wealth as will be the tax increases we are all gonna see in a few months.

How is it not redistribution? The average workers wages have decreased while the top executives have increased dramaticly. The money has been redistributed to the top.

In 1965, CEOs were paid only 20.1 times more than the average worker instead of today’s 231 times. The right of workers to organize and bargain collectively, allowing workers to reap the gains won by their increased productivity was the beginning of the shift. Since 1981 when President Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers the share of wealth steadily shifted from bottom up. Let’s be honest, everyone supports redistribution of wealth. It is ones perception of the justice of redistribution that we are discussing. You apparently feel that letting upper-income tax cuts expire is an unjust redistribution of wealth. Not only do I disagree with the premise that it is unjust, I would take my income from the Bill Clinton presidency- higher taxes included, any day.

Like Deep Throat said a long time ago, "Follow the money".

Who writes the Labor Laws? Congress.
Who pays Congress to write laws favorable to themselves? CEO's, through Lobbiests.

Why do you think there are over 42,000 registered Lobbiests in DC, and who do you think pays them, and why?

Because CEO's now make 230 times what their workers make, that's why.