You need to work 350 years to match your CEO’s pay

Profits keep going up — but not enough is trickling down. [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a big flavor of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - You [don’t trust]( the CEO. - Trump loves to [flex machismo](. - [Lebanon]( takes a blow. - Restaurants are [old and slow](. Trust Is Lost It’s really difficult for me to imagine Boeing being “an icon of US business, spreading the gospel of American engineering and corporate excellence across the globe” for an entire century, so I’ll just have to take Beth Kowitt’s [word for it](. Nowadays, the aircraft manufacturer is little more than a punchline for [viral tweets]( OK, maybe 20 years of trying to emulate Lost is a stretch. But ever since a pair of crashes in 2018 and 2019 killed over 300 people, trouble has followed the aerospace giant. In the past year alone, a [door plug blew off]( mid-flight, a pair of [astronauts got stranded]( in space and [cabin pressure]( issues caused passengers to bleed from their nose and ears. The Federal Aviation Administration’s six-week audit revealed that Boeing factory workers are pushed to [prioritize speed over quality]( — a finding no frequent flier wants to hear. Trust [in the company]( is perhaps permanently gone. And it’s a trend that goes beyond Boeing: “Americans’ faith in big business as a whole has been slowly but surely eroding for years,” Beth writes. The percentage of Americans who have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in major companies dropped from 30% in 1999 to 16% this year, according to Gallup. Lopsided wealth creation is a major culprit: Year after year, the top brass fattens their slice of the profit pie at the expense of employees. Some will tell you that’s just how business rolls in America. But corporate swashbuckling à la [“stakeholder capitalism”]( reeks of hypocrisy. Case in point? [Executive pay]( which Beth says was “a glaring lacuna in the Business Roundtable’s 2019 missive about the new era of corporate responsibility.” Two years ago, CEOs at the 350 largest publicly-owned US companies took home a projected $25.2 million. “Meanwhile, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio was approximately 344-to-one, meaning it would take nearly 350 years for a typical employee to match what their CEO made in just one year. Compare that with 1965 when the ratio was 21-to-one,” she notes. When sectors go through tough times, executives are often shielded while employees are hung out to dry. For instance, last year was [a pretty tumultuous time]( on Wall Street, what with Silicon Valley Bank literally [running out of money]( and Credit Suisse [getting bought by UBS]( but you wouldn’t know it by looking at [CEO compensation]( Banking — an industry that’s had more ups and downs than Allison Schrager can count — [relies on trust]( “In financial markets, billions of transactions occur each day between people all over the world, for obligations far into the future. Trust is critical for all participants, even someone whose level of engagement is just investing in an index fund,” she writes. Think about all the people getting into crypto. Although the faithful will tell you a decentralized network of computers requires zero trust from the user, Nir Kaissar [suspects]( “few people understand how blockchain works, or how to mine or store digital coins.” Plus, crypto has a far-from-sterling reputation: Bloomberg’s editorial board [says]( 25% of [new tokens]( end up being pure pump-and-dump schemes. No wonder people turn to financial intermediaries such as banks and exchange-traded funds to do their bidding for them: An SEC-approved ETF sure beats Donald Trump’s sketchy new crypto scheme, World Liberty Financial. “It was perhaps inevitable that Trump’s family would end up desperately hawking a crypto scheme to his most gullible supporters,” the editors write. On the bright side, at least he’s not trying to sell us [his airplane]( Oh, wait. I may have [spoken too soon](. To read more from our new series about the loss of trust in American institutions and what can be done to restore it, head over to the [Republic of Distrust]( homepage. Thank God My Wife Didn’t Hear That Bernie Moreno isn’t a senator. But he wants to be one, even if his methods for garnering support from his fellow Republicans suggest otherwise. At a campaign event in Lebanon, Ohio, the Senate hopeful recently [told a room full of voters]( that suburban women who only care about abortion are “a little crazy” especially if they’re past the age of 50. “I don’t think that’s an issue for you!” he exclaimed, adding, “Thank God my wife didn’t hear that one.” Never mind that many of those women have daughters, nieces, colleagues and friends who still get their periods. Or that some of them had abortions when they were young. Or that others have brothers and sons and nephews who’ve relied on fertility clinics. Moreno insists 50-year-old women shouldn’t give a rat’s behind about abortion because they’re in menopause. Future grandchildren be damned! Can’t say I’m surprised by the flawed logic. Trump’s MAGA acolytes merely follow his election playbook, which Nia-Malika Henderson [says]( is chock-full of sexist, outdated views of America. “In a country where women earn high school, college and graduate degrees at a [higher rate than men]( Trump has marveled that men [allow their wives]( to travel and attend his rallies without them,” she writes. The former president claims that women are “more stressed and depressed and unhappy … and are less optimistic and confident in the future than they were 4 years ago.” Even if that were true, Trump should quit the self-aggrandizing. After all, he was the one who appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and “ushered in a medical nightmare that has caused the [deaths of at least]( two women, and likely many more,” Nia-Malika writes. Bonus Trump Reading: Nebraska Senator Mike McDonnell stood up for [voting rules]( while bucking his party and Donald Trump. — Patricia Lopez Israel Set a Trap for Iran Meanwhile in Lebanon the country, Israel stepped up its [heaviest air attacks]( on Hezbollah since 2006. Marc Champion [says]( Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s forces have now killed at least three of the organization’s top commanders — “the result of years of intelligence gathering and amounts to the kind of shaping operation that would precede a ground invasion.” “The painful anniversary of Oct. 7 — the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust — is just days away. So at home, these successes against Hezbollah will help buffer Netanyahu from inevitable accusations of his failures a year ago, and in Gaza since,” Marc writes. But Israel’s so-called success could quickly sour if Netanyahu continues to turn southern Lebanon into a war-torn wasteland. “Even though Israel’s case for striking back at Hezbollah is strong — it’s been attacking Israel for a year — doing so now is doomed to be tainted by the excesses and suffering of Gaza,” he says. “Already, civilian casualties in Lebanon are becoming the primary focus of reporting outside Israel. Israeli airstrikes killed 558 people on Monday and Tuesday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.” Instead of risking the lives of more innocent women and children, Marc urges Netanyahu to shift his focus on diplomacy so that he may “create a path to lasting security for Israel and its neighbors.” Read [the whole thing](. Telltale Charts Looks like people are sick of soup and salad: Jonathan Levin [says]( Olive Garden and its sit-down restaurant chain cousins — Applebee’s, Denny’s, Outback Steakhouse and [Cracker Barrel]( — have “failed to evolve as consumers demonstrated a growing preference for bigger flavors and swifter service.” In an era of [keto burrito bowls]( and [hot honey boneless wings]( the unlimited breadsticks are going stale. Bloomberg’s editorial board [says]( Microsoft’s plan to reopen Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant “could prove highly consequential” for the green-energy transition, but Liam Denning [doubts]( the country is heading for a full-scale nuclear renaissance: There are “limited opportunities to restart other dormant reactors,” he writes, and “formidable obstacles” stand in the way of creating new nuclear capacity. Further Reading China is taking [its frustrations]( with the US out on Japan. — Minxin Pei [A court case]( in Singapore has voters questioning the ruling party. — Karishma Vaswani The steep cost of [obesity drugs]( is a barrier for patients and a risk to the insurance system. — Lisa Jarvis Money managers can — and do — [beat their benchmarks]( more often than you think. — Merryn Somerset Webb Central banks in Europe and the UK should [try to keep up]( with US rate cuts. — Marcus Ashworth Port workers [deserve a raise]( but they shouldn’t be able to veto progress. — Thomas Black ICYMI The [art market]( is tanking. Putin expands Russia’s [nuclear doctrine](. Hurricane Helene could turn [monstrous](. [LA firefighter]( funds are a mystery. There’s an uptick in [student arrests](. Kickers If only [Zack and Cody]( had [Eataly on deck](. Archaeologists dig up an [ancient board game](. The chunkiest of chunks face off in Alaska’s [Fat Bear Week](. There’s a [poison pen letter scandal]( in Yorkshire. (h/t Andrea Felsted) Detroit’s [Bridgerton Ball]( is the US version of the Willy Wonka Experience. Notes: Please send [Dollar General decorations]( and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Threads]( [TikTok]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us Stay updated by saving our new email address Our email address is changing, which means you’ll be receiving this newsletter from noreply@news.bloomberg.com. 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