Today x, tomorrow why?

By nearly any measure–ok, probably by every measure, CEO pay is vastly disproportionate to the pay of the average worker.  Here’s one example (via Bloomberg):

Former fashion jewelry saleswoman Rebecca Gonzales and former Chief Executive Officer Ron Johnson have one thing in common: J.C. Penney Co. (JCP) no longer employs either.

The similarity ends there. Johnson, 54, got a compensation package worth 1,795 times the average wage and benefits of a U.S. department store worker when he was hired in November 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Gonzales’s hourly wage was $8.30 that year.

Read the rest of the article (charts and all).  In light of this and similar facts, Congress tried to work up something.  Since Congress mostly sucks at lawmaking, they passed a rule that companies need at least to disclose the ratio.

This rule was not long for the world, as the House Financial Services Committee has just voted to repeal that mandate.  One member, Jeb Hensarling, reasoned thusly:

Today, joked House Financial Services chair Jeb Hensarling from Texas, CEO-worker pay disclosure, tomorrow a mandate that companies calculate the ratio of office supplies they get from national big box retailers to the goods they get from locals — or the ratio of healthy to unhealthy drinks in company soda machines.

Yes, when will these burdensome disclosures end?

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