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TOPIC A
Is the compensation of CEOs and other top executives excessive? |
BACKGROUND:
CEO Pay Soars While Workers' Pay Stalls. USA Today, April 4, 2011.
What the data show about trends in CEO pay in 2010.
Bargains in the Boardroom?. The New York Times, April 3, 2010.
Signs that a reordering of executive compensation may be under way, but will reform last only as long as the economic downturn? (NY Times site link here - same article but different title.)
Compraison Shopping. Slate, May 11, 2009.
If CEOs and others should earn "what the market will bear," how better to figure this out than to look at how the market is treating other CEOs?
CHART: 2010 CEO Pay Chart. USA Today, March 31, 2011.
CEO pay at S&P 500 firms in which the same CEO served throughout 2010.
CHART: Two Decades of CEO Pay. Forbes, December 2011.
Interactive snapshot of tends in average CEO pay going back to 1989.
YES:
CEOs Are Being Paid Too Much. Across the Board, January/February 2006.
Written by an executive compensation consultant.
Supersize This: How CEO Pay Took Off While America's Middle Class Struggled (pdf). Center for American Progress, May 2005.
Expanding inequality between CEO pay and the stagnant wages of rank and file workers "is not the American dream."
CEO Pay and the Great Recession. Institute for Policy Studies, September 1, 2010.
Link above goes to a brief introduction to the IPS report, full text of which is here (pdf). You can find a link to the Institute's 2011 report on CEO pay here.
NO:
Don't Mess With CEO Pay. Across the Board, January/February 2006.
Written by a former CEO.
Should Congress Limit Executive Pay? The New York Times, January 4, 2009.
Maybe it makes sense to limit pay at firms getting bailout money, but otherwise not. (NY Times site link here.)
CEO Pay is Not the Problem (pdf). West Coast Asset Management, June 2006.
Reports of stratospheric pay packages may fuel the public’s ire, but the real issue is excessive CEO power that corrupts corporate
governance.
Wall Street Deserved Its Bonuses. Forbes, February 19, 2009.
It's hard for someone making $50,000 a year to imagine that anyone can be worth 10 or 100 times that. But they well might be.
AND ALSO, Tangentially:
CEOs Are Ridiculed for Huge Salaries: Why Aren't Athletes and Entertainers? Knowledge@Emory, January 14, 2004.
Interesting digression on why CEO's catch so much flack for exhorbitant pay, but athletes and entertainers don't. |
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TOPIC B
Should college athletes be paid? |
BACKGROUND:
How Big-Time Sports Ate College Life. The New York Times, January 22, 2012.
Some backdrop: Have we reached a point where big-time intercollegiate athletics is undermining the integrity of our universities, diverting them from their main purpose? (NY Times site link here.)
KEY ARTICLE:
The Shame of College Sports. The Atlantic, October 2011.
In a major and much-discussed article last fall, Pulitzer Prize-winning civil-rights historian Taylor Branch makes the case for paying college athletes. This piece argues the "yes" side, but I am listing it up here because of its special role in catalyzing current controversy over and discussion of this issue.
YES:
Here's How to Pay Up Now. The New York Times Magazine, January 2, 2012.
Paying football and basketball players will not ruin college sports; given the way things are going, paying the players may be the only way to save them. (In ProQuest you have to choose the PDF link upper right of screen to see the article. NY Times site link here - same article but different title.)
The Case for Paying College Athletes. The Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2011.
The chorus of voices in favor of allowing college players to profit from their fame before they graduate is growing louder. (WSJ site link here.)
College Athletes Deserve to be Paid. ESPN, July 18, 2011.
Students who play for revenue-producing teams can be compensated from the lucrative media rights fees they make wholly possible.
NO:
Should College Athletes Be Paid? They Already Are. Sports Illustrated, September 21, 2011.
College players already have access to the fair market. If they want to be compensated for their abilities, they can simply turn professional.
Fixing College Sports: Why Paying Student Athletes Won't Work. New York, November 29, 2011.
Major college sports have grown more mercenary. We should brake that trend, not to accelerate it.
Bowling for Dollars: Should College Athletes Be Paid?. Huffington Post, December 19, 2011.
While the current system may not be fair, a pay-for-play scenario could result in a Pandora's Box of entanglements for the NCAA and its members.
Why Student Athletes are Not Paid to Play. NCAA.
The brief, official position of the NCAA, from its website. |
