I understand what you are saying. I understand that every single thing a person gets is compensation, whether bonuses, healthcare, paid vacations, sick days, everything is part of the compensation.

It's not really even about Credit Suisse. It's about worldwide C-suite compensation. It is disgusting.

I did just look at comparisons between USA CEOs to European and Japanese, and America is a horror show compared to them. This is CEOs so I'm not sure how the entire C-suite or top executives would fare against the same in America - maybe European companies spread it out more evenly to top-level executives.

https://www.wtwco.com/en-US/Insights/2020/12/ceo-pay-landsca...

But if the $3.2 billion per year in bonuses still went to the top 20 people, it is essentially the same, at least to me.

But I do know the USA better, so I will comment to that even though Credit Suisse is Euro. For example, Tim Cook of Apple made $100 million in 2021, not including $754 million in stock shares. Cook "voluntarily" took a "cut" in compensation to $50 million per year this year. Oh, thanks, Tim. But is Tim Cook going to quit and do nothing if he was paid $5 million all along? Yeah, maybe now he would, given that he is a billionaire, but if from the start, no he would not quit, nor stop working as hard. People are motivated by more than money. They will take it, of course, who wouldn't?

Nobody, but nobody, needs that much money. How many pairs of shoes and pants does one need? And I use shoes and pants metaphorically. How much shit does one need?

And partly, or mostly, it is driven by boards of directors, who make $300K or $400K or whatever it is per year by going to 4 meetings per year. Not bad job, if you can get it. Just looked it up - Harvard Law School report says it is $290K for large cap, $217K for medium cap, and $164K for small. These board of directors are always high executive levels and KNOW if they as a group across the USA vote the average CEO and C-suite higher compensation, they will eventually get it too, so it is a conflict of interest that screw over the shareholders, and all other workers who are down the chain.

In the 1960s, CEO compensation was 60 times the average worker, or 6,000%. Not bad. Now it is 350 times the average worker, or 35,000% more.

From the beginning of income tax, for most of USA history, the tax rate was 70-90% on the top tax bracket. It came down to 50% when Reagan was elected in 1980, and then down to about 35% in 1986 and stayed there until present. Guess when the inequalities between the richest 10% and the other 90% started occuring...you guessed it, in 1986. you get a 35-55% tax break, you tend to make more money, kinda sorta.

As a matter of fact, the only time that the income tax level went down to the richest tax bracket was in the late 1920s....and then the market collapse happened and the Great Depression happened...correlation, or causation...I vote causation. And the exact same scenario is playing out now. Unmitigated greed is happening.

And what happened is that when the wealthy hit the top tax bracket, there was no reason to earn more. Their salary was capped, in essense. And that is why CEO compensation was only 6000% more than the average worker.

People make the bogus argument that the best won't then work. That's totally wrong, as the best don't work for compensation. They work for competition. And what else are they going to do if tax is at 70-90%? Sit around and do nothing? They still have to send kids to college and pay mortgages. And everyone else is subject to the same restrictions. And when we had the higher top tax bracket, that is when "normal" people had lower tuitions paid for by the public, hospital costs were less, etc. And I've read all the other "reasons" for what others say is the reason for price raises in everything, but I don't buy them.

Why should even a small business owner make $5 million a year while providing bronze health insurance, with super high deductables to his or her employees, when maybe if the owner could take $5 million and get everyone gold level health care?

There's a LOT more I could say but this is enough. I don't have time to write more.

But, to sum up, the CEO and entire executive class makes too much money and it needs to be reined in.

Sorry I wrote so much. It's a topic that causes steam to rise from my skull. :P