Stand up to CEO greed

Citizens of Bell, Calif., deserve applause for standing up to city officials who allegedly took millions of dollars in public funds to pay for their bloated salaries.

Why is this spirit of activism so rare? When will shareholders in public corporations protest when CEOs and their rigged compensation committees award pay packages that steal millions from a company’s balance sheet? Sure, it all looks legal, but just as the citizens of Bell smelled a rat and did something about it, why don’t stockholders do the same and storm corporate boardrooms to demand that profits be responsibly distributed?

There’s a big difference between a competitive compensation package to attract top talent and simple greed. In a generation, CEO pay has undergone an astonishing tenfold increase from about 35 times to 360 times the pay of an average worker.

CEOs will continue gaming the system to give themselves and their enablers exorbitant pay, bonuses and benefits until we pressure corporate boards to distribute profits fairly among managers, workers and shareholders. Unless people get involved, like the citizens of Bell did, these abuses will continue. You can bet corporations are involved lobbying Congress to continue business as usual.

Jack O’Dea

Kettle Falls, Wash.