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$77 million for Larry Ellison (for one year)

Milhouse said:
do you think he's paying taxes?
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Of course I do. He won't pay it on the stock compensation until he exercises those NQ options or vests in the restricted shares, but if he doesn't exercise or vest in them, he isn't really receiving anything of value.

Not aware of any magic bullet where people who earn millions in taxable income can avoid paying taxes on that compensation.

From the article:

"The value that a company assigned to an executive's stock and option awards for 2012 was the present value of what the company expected the awards to be worth to the executive over time. Companies use one of several formulas to calculate that value. However, the number is just an estimate, and what an executive ultimately receives will depend on the performance of the company's stock in the years after the awards are granted. Most stock compensation programs require an executive to wait a specified amount of time to receive shares or exercise options."

His compensation for financial reporting (proxy) purposes is based on the current estimate. Compensation for tax is based on when you actually receive something of value.
 
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The government shouldn't interfere with how much he makes unless they decide that Oracle's profits were attained illegally or through monopolistic means. However, they should drastically raise the taxes on insane incomes like this. Something around 60% for a top tax bracket sounds fair to me for those making > $10 million a year -- and no capital gains loopholes. It's not about what's fair. It's about the best interest of society holistically. Concentrating too much wealth in the top 0.0001% will result in very bad things all around in the future.
 
At those amounts, it's either restricted stock or non-qualified options. Income will be taxed as ordinary on either the value of the restricted stock at vesting, or on the option spread at exercise. Then if you hold the difference of that value and the value you sell at would be taxed as capital gains.
 
OliveGardenDeac said:
The government shouldn't interfere with how much he makes unless they decide that Oracle's profits were attained illegally or through monopolistic means. However, they should drastically raise the taxes on insane incomes like this. Something around 60% for a top tax bracket sounds fair to me for those making > $10 million a year -- and no capital gains loopholes. It's not about what's fair. It's about the best interest of society holistically. Concentrating too much wealth in the top 0.0001% will result in very bad things all around in the future.
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How is a historically ineffective and inefficient government confiscating 60% of persons wealth in the best interest of society holistically? If you want to punish rich people just say so but don't mask it in the cloak of doing good for society.
 
SkinsNDeacs said:
How is a historically ineffective and inefficient government confiscating 60% of persons wealth in the best interest of society holistically? If you want to punish rich people just say so but don't mask it in the cloak of doing good for society.
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There is a set amount of pie to go around. Sure it grows very slowly over time, but that will happen regardless of the highest tax bracket. A 60% bracket isn't communism or even socialism; it doesn't remove the incentive to be the most productive you can by any means. The way society is heading is toward most of the wealth being concentrated not in the 1 % so commonly discussed in the media, but in the top 0.1%. Soon that will become the the top 0.01% and so forth. Even among the forbes 400, wealth is more concentrated in the top 10 relative to ranks 300-400 than it ever has been. When Forbes started the list in 1982, the richest man had 27 times as much money as the #400th richest. Today that multiple has risen to over 60x--and not because of a single outlier. The macro causes for this have to do with increased automation with most of the productivity gains enriching the capitalist class while the middle class sees real wages fall. By 2040, over half of the current jobs will be permanently replaced by machines. And it's not just low-skilled positions, even surgeons are at risk. These jobs won't be replaced easily. Humans simply will be needed less and less in the global economy over the next century, no matter how intelligent or hard-working they may be. But where does the reward of the productivity go? There certainly won't be any less wealth created. It won't be going to the robots--but rather to the owners of the robots, the 0.00001% will capture most of the wealth by the middle of this century. If you can't see a problem with that, let's end the discussion there as we obviously don't see eye to eye on the goals of our species. I believe that all humans have equal worth, and that our goals are 1. ultimate knowledge, 2. ultimate freedom, and 3. maximizing total pleasure while minimizing total pain. Giving nearly all the rewards of society's progress to a handful of people among billions is about the furthest thing from that goal that I can imagine.
 
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OliveGardenDeac said:
There is a set amount of pie to go around. Sure it grows very slowly over time, but that will happen regardless of the highest tax bracket. A 60% bracket isn't communism or even socialism; it doesn't remove the incentive to be the most productive you can by any means. The way society is heading is toward most of the wealth being concentrated not in the 1 % so commonly discussed in the media, but in the top 0.1%. Soon that will become the the top 0.01% and so forth. Even among the forbes 400, wealth is more concentrated in the top 10 relative to ranks 300-400 than it ever has been. When Forbes started the list in 1982, the richest man had 27 times as much money as the #400th richest. Today that multiple has risen to over 60x--and not because of a single outlier. The macro causes for this have to do with increased automation with most of the productivity gains enriching the capitalist class while the middle class sees real wages fall. By 2040, over half of the current jobs will be permanently replaced by machines. And it's not just low-skilled positions, even surgeons are at risk. These jobs won't be replaced easily. Humans simply will be needed less and less in the global economy over the next century, no matter how intelligent or hard-working they may be. But where does the reward of the productivity go? There certainly won't be any less wealth created. It won't be going to the robots--but rather to the owners of the robots, the 0.00001% will capture most of the wealth by the middle of this century. If you can't see a problem with that, let's end the discussion there as we obviously don't see eye to eye on the goals of our species. I believe that all humans have equal worth, and that our goals are 1. ultimate knowledge, 2. ultimate freedom, and 3. maximizing total pleasure while minimizing total pain. Giving nearly all the rewards of society's progress to a handful of people among billions is about the furthest thing from that goal that I can imagine.
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Great...failed to address the question.
 
SkinsNDeacs said:
Great...failed to address the question.
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Sorry I thought the answer to the question was obvious. Government is nothing more than the organization of the people and the means to ensure that society is progressing toward its goals instead of away from them. We all get an equal say (theoretically at least) in how the government should spend its resources--in some areas I agree we do a poor job of allocation. However, Larry Ellison is perhaps the most inefficient arbiter of wealth in the history of mankind. I can think of no greater inefficiency than such large portions of the vast productivity of Oracle going to building 400 foot superyachts, owning 20 mansions used on average less than 2 weeks per year and constant fuel-burning, air-polluting private 747 travel to attend parties. If we crafted society in such a way that individuals couldn't amass so much of the pie but instead it was distributed more evenly, we'd collectively all be a lot better off. Larry is long past the diminishing returns of being able to enjoy his wealth and power. If 80% of his wealth vanished tomorrow, even his lavish lifestyle wouldn't miss a step. But if were to be taken for the collective use, how many fewer children would be starving in Africa? How many cures for diseases could be researched? How many injustices in the world could be righted?

Now I'm not suggesting that we should immediately take all billionaire wealth and redistribute it to more utilitarian causes. It has to be a gradual thing. Favorable tax policies for the uber rich have caused a lot of this mess. We simply need to close the capital gains loophole and created 2 more high tax brackets--say > $1 million take 50%, > $10 million take 60% for example.
 
Nah dudes we should take all of his money and give it to the Unions! Because nobody who runs a union ever takes more than their share.
 
OliveGardenDeac said:
There is a set amount of pie to go around. Sure it grows very slowly over time, but that will happen regardless of the highest tax bracket. A 60% bracket isn't communism or even socialism; it doesn't remove the incentive to be the most productive you can by any means. The way society is heading is toward most of the wealth being concentrated not in the 1 % so commonly discussed in the media, but in the top 0.1%. Soon that will become the the top 0.01% and so forth. Even among the forbes 400, wealth is more concentrated in the top 10 relative to ranks 300-400 than it ever has been. When Forbes started the list in 1982, the richest man had 27 times as much money as the #400th richest. Today that multiple has risen to over 60x--and not because of a single outlier. The macro causes for this have to do with increased automation with most of the productivity gains enriching the capitalist class while the middle class sees real wages fall. By 2040, over half of the current jobs will be permanently replaced by machines. And it's not just low-skilled positions, even surgeons are at risk. These jobs won't be replaced easily. Humans simply will be needed less and less in the global economy over the next century, no matter how intelligent or hard-working they may be. But where does the reward of the productivity go? There certainly won't be any less wealth created. It won't be going to the robots--but rather to the owners of the robots, the 0.00001% will capture most of the wealth by the middle of this century. If you can't see a problem with that, let's end the discussion there as we obviously don't see eye to eye on the goals of our species. I believe that all humans have equal worth, and that our goals are 1. ultimate knowledge, 2. ultimate freedom, and 3. maximizing total pleasure while minimizing total pain. Giving nearly all the rewards of society's progress to a handful of people among billions is about the furthest thing from that goal that I can imagine.
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Pretty good post on the economic situation. Epicurus would be proud of you for the bolded part.
 
sailordeac said:
Pretty good post on the economic situation. Epicurus would be proud of you for the bolded part.
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Except it is pretty difficult to apply those goals to the current state of the us government. Their three goals would be more like.

1. Acquire power
2. Enact programs to protect power
3. Use political power to smother political opponents.

Rinse and repeat (goes for both parties).

Utopia seems like a nice world but it doesn't exist when you have pelosi and cantor running the show.
 
The continuing polarization of income and the icreasing concentration of enormous wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people in America are dangerous trends. The issue needs to be addressed. This is no longer an option.
 
I have to disagree BKF. A person making 77MM/year doesn't mean that poor people are getting shafted. It's not a zero sum game. If you don't like him making that much, stop buying Oracle products.

Now, what is a person making that amount of money contributing to or improving society is a different issue.
 
sailordeac said:
The continuing polarization of income and the icreasing concentration of enormous wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people in America are dangerous trends. The issue needs to be addressed. This is no longer an option.
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a revolution is coming
 
bobknightfan said:
Why is it not a "zero sum game"...at least to some extent? Where does that $77 million come from? Does Oracle have a printing press by which they just add that $77 million into the nation's total money supply?

As I see it, unless Oracle has a money printing press, there are only three places from which Oracle can extract that $77 million to pay Ellison.

1) They pay other employees less.
2) They extract it from profits which would otherwise go to all the stockholders in some form at some point.
3) They charge more for their products and services so as not to impact the net profit....which means that all other people who use Oracle products are paying for Ellison's $77 million/year payout.

And in all three of these scenerios, Ellison's $77 million is coming out of the pockets of other people somewhere. That is basically the definition of a "zero sum game". Oracle hasn't created any new money to pay for that $77 million.
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1) Don't work for Oracle
2) Don't buy Oracle stock
3) Don't buy Oracle products
 
SkinsNDeacs said:
How is a historically ineffective and inefficient government confiscating 60% of persons wealth in the best interest of society holistically? If you want to punish rich people just say so but don't mask it in the cloak of doing good for society.
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uh, wut? please explain this in the context of the time period between the ratification of the 16th amendment through WWII and the cold war up until the nineties as the worlds greatest economic superpower thanks
 
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I'm not blindly supporting or endorsing anything. 77MM/year is ridiculous, unless I'm making it, then it's cool...I'll write a big check to the Deacon Club.
 
Ellison is widely despised in the Bay Area. He wanted to build a house that was larger and cost more than Bill Gates's house. After Ellison spent $200 Million on his house, he challenged the assessed value of the house because there was no resale market for it and had his property taxes reduced. Ellison wanted to buy the Warriors, but submitted a low ball offer and sulked when it was rejected.
 
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