We're already used to seeing the regulars on Fox's Cashin' In attacking minimum wage workers and and supporting companies that want a race to the bottom on wages and claiming that we don't need the government to interfere because the "free market" will take care of everything instead.
So what happens when a business decides to buck the trend we've seen where CEO pay is hundreds of times higher than the average worker at most companies, and actually pay all of their workers at least $70 thousand a year? They go on the attack, of course.
After a lead in explaining what Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price announced this week and showing some snippets of interviews with him, here's how host Eric Bolling started things off on this Saturday's show:
BOLLING: Okay Michelle, thoughts on this guy? Personally I think he's a socialist, but your thoughts?
Yes, or course he must be a "socialist" to believe in pay equity.
FIELDS: Well look, I think it's good that he sees that his employees can justify a $70 thousand minimum wage, but I don't think that this is representative of the minimum wage debate. Look, this is not some people who are flipping burgers. I think the people who are out on the street who are upset that they're being paid $10 an hour rather than $15 an hour should go and improve their skill set and then maybe they can command $70 thousand or more. It's not about getting the government involved. It's about improving your skill set.
BOLLING: How about it Jon, your thoughts?
HOENIG: Well I have to say I think he's pretty foolish. I think he's a second-hander. He's a real Peter Keating type who needs other people to like him. We know he's an Obama fan-boy. I mean, Obama met with him, and what is his whole point here? That it's a moral imperative...
FIELDS: Publicity.
HOENIG: … that CEO's don't make so much more than the lower employees. The truth is that he's worth a lot more. He's the one that started the company when he was nineteen years old. And I don't know, those employees seem to like it, but it's almost like he's saying, you're not really worth this amount of money, but I just feel so bad for my own success, that I'm going to go ahead and share the wealth.
No, it's "almost like he's saying" that he's not worth that many times more than the employees that make sure his business runs smoothly and profitably day after day, which is what he did say. Notice how people like Hoenig never seem to have a problem with how much money a CEO is sucking away from company profits with their salary and benefits? It's only when it's the little people getting their fair share that it upsets him.
Bolling went onto attack Price for supposedly just wanting to draw attention to himself and did his best, along with the rest of them, to try downplay the issue of income inequality being a real problem, with regular Wayne Rogers making the most ridiculous statement of the day, saying his workers should be receiving charitable contributions instead of wages and his other regular, Lisa Boothe, lying about minimum wage being a job killer.
BOLLING: I have a hunch we're going to know Dan Price for a really long time, but the 130 employees of Gravity Payments, I think they're going to be on the welfare line soon.
TARLOV: I'm not sure about that, but I think that what Dan Price was trying to do was what he said in a lot of his interviews. He's trying to draw attention to an inequality problem that we have in this country. An overwhelming majority of Americans feel that way and 40 percent of them feel that corporations actually need to play a role in fixing that.
BOLLING: So he's playing with his employees future, to draw attention to a problem that he thinks he's fixing.
TARLOV: No, he's not just playing with their future.
BOLLING: Let me throw this to Wayne. Wayne, the company made, revenue, not profit, revenue $15 million a year last year, and now he's saddling that same company with $9 million in payroll. This is a ploy.
ROGERS: Look, it's his company. He's entitled to do what he wants to with it. It's a free market and if he wants to give it all away, that's fine. I'm just disappointed that he's paying it out in salaries, because the government's going to get a piece of that in taxes. I'd rather him just make a charitable contribution and give it to his people what way. I applaud him, but look, it's his, what he wants to do, it's his money, let him do it.
BOLLING: Lisa, your thoughts?
BOOTHE: Well look, I don't support a minimum wage increase because it's a job killer, but he's a private business owner. If he wants to do this in between hugging trees, then you know, good for him, as long as the government's not coercing him to do it, I'm fine with it.
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