I often have conversations with people who think it's easy to start and run a profitable business even though they have never done this before.

I was in business from 1986 to 1992, building a company from scratch--and eventually going broke. The challenges and stresses are immense. I probably had 10 to 20 phone calls a day to keep things moving in the short term and long term. Many people can't handle that--especially the part of not being able to cash your paycheck you wrote to yourself because the cash flow is not there.

In 1998, I got a long term illness. Running a business is out of the question for me. Management is out of the question. I just can't do that work anymore.

More people can stock shelves and do a reasonable job. Fewer people can do a good job of figuring out inventory and what goods to order for next week. In the end, the free market kind of settles this issue. A talented inventory cleck can find a better paying job if his/her current firm has a flat salary schedule because all workers are equal.

No gotcha! The CEOs of the 1950s and 1960s did not earn 14,000 times the wage of the mail boy. Most were in the 90% tax bracket, and there was no way to hide that income. If they got rich from the CEO job, it was probably because of the perch the CEO job gave them. They had some disposible income to make wise investments.

Today's CEO gets rich in more ways. And they are generally unaccountable for their performance. If they are proven incompent, they have had several years of $1m+ salary to retire comfortably.

http://www.tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/blog_details.php?blog_cat_id=24&id=10