The Corporate Observer Archives

Okay, first a disclaimer: I am all Apple, all the time. I’m currently typing on my MacBook Pro; I will be talking later on my iPhone. Later still I will be listening to music from my iTunes account on my iPod. I am now the proud owner of an Apple TV gizmo and if they sold cars, I’d be driving an icar.

So $378 million for the CEO. What’s the big deal? A-Rod makes $250 million and he just plays for a baseball team (oh, that’s over ten years, you say?). Worse yet, 7 out of 10 times at bat he’s unsuccessful. And there are lunch bucket executives aplenty making… gulp… tens of millions or more. UnitedHealth Group CEO Stephen Hemsley took in a nice $102 million in 2011; Robert Iger of Walt Disney “only” made $53 million. Poor guy. So why fuss about Tim Cook? He should be on top of the heap.

First, is it really $378 million? Indeed it is. Not salary (which is a cool $900k), but mostly in the form of a package of restricted stock. He receives half of the stock in 2016; the other $188 million vests in 2021. What a wait, huh? But believe me, if he went over to the local branch of any bank and said, “I’d like a loan against my Apple compensation,” he could certainly borrow $378 million. More likely he could borrow a billion and buy the bank.

Yep, he’s made bank. The pursuit of bank. The oil that lubricates the capitalist system. I’m all in, but—and here it comes, from the protector of consumers and the 99%—we need to recalibrate.

No, not socialism. But we need a system where the CEO makes 100 times the lowest-paid employee, or maybe close to 1,000 times. But not 10,000 times. Let’s say the lowest-paid employee at Apple makes $38,700. Mr. Cook makes 10,000 times that amount in total compensation. It is too much to sustain. It creates the disparity of the robber baron era; we need to move on to a society that values all contributors.

My love for Apple products goes beyond Mr. Cook’s leadership in the boardroom. It involves the great designers, software engineers, and the guy in the warehouse shipping the product to my door. Don’t pay them all the same, but incentivize them all and save some for a rainy day.

Read more from attorney Steven Berk at his blog, The Corporate Observer, which focuses on current legal and consumer protection issues.

We are a country built upon the rule of law. It may not be perfect. With every case there is a winner and a loser, and sometimes the losers have the better argument. But it works in the main. And it works in large amount because we have an independent judiciary. Judges—yes they are human—bringing their personal opinions and biases to deliberations. Remember, that’s why they were chosen or elected. But they mostly get it right. (That’s hard for me to swallow because my practice and larger sense of jurisprudence resides on the other side of “mostly,” but I must concede the point.) Say Judges are “wrong” (a subjective term of course) 30% of the time. The system works fine. No worries.

So why does Mr. Gingrich wants to topple the whole thing. Why? Well for political expediency mostly. He needs to excite a few thousand Christian Evangelical voters in Iowa and elsewhere to get on buses and go to caucuses and support his candidacy for President of a 200-plus year-old democracy. Indeed, a thriving democracy with an independent judiciary.

His message: we need to destroy that independence. Haul them up for hearings before Congress, fire them, (how bout “tar and feather them,” sure that works and if need be throw them in their own secular jails). This makes Roosevelt’s court-packing plan seem almost pedestrian in contrast. And if Congress won’t play ball, well… throw them in jail too.

Can a serious candidate for President be willing to suggest the end of democracy as we know it in order to pander for a few thousand votes? Yikes.

I say the best solution is ship Mr. Gingrich over to North Korea. They need a new dictator and he’s got the perfect message.

Read more from attorney Steven Berk at his blog, The Corporate Observer, which focuses on current legal and consumer protection issues.

The Corporate Observer

Tim Cook, $378 Million Dollar Man: Is he worth it?

The Corporate Observer Endorses Newt Gingrich for President (of North Korea)