The question on the minds of both current and retired General Electric workers is: “How much is enough, when the current CEO, Larry Culp, is paid 345 times what the company pays its median workers?”

That question has been asked over the decades, as far back as the time GE was a leading corporation on the stock market and yet refused many of its retirees an increase in their pensions which, for some, amounted to as little as $600-$800 a month. These were longtime retirees of decades and the company's good fortunes had no effect on their ability to live decently.

Even as he was taking his millions in compensation each year, CEO Jack Welch could not bear to consider an increase in pensions for some of the lowest paid workers who struggled in retirement. He was referred to as “Neutron Jack” Welch for his uncanny ability to shed workers and leave the buildings standing, as the neutron bomb would effect, if it had ever been used.

Culp is not going to complain about his total compensation, because he had the example of those who came before him to head the once leading corporation in the U.S. and, in fact, the world. None of the CEOs and their minions in top management will ever complain about their combined pay and perks, because they feel that they have earned it. To the line worker in the company and the highly-skilled workers in the shops and research labs, it is not clear how they justify that outrageous level of compensation.

It doesn't matter that GE was headed downward after the tenure of Jack Welch, who took the company in a different direction, forgoing the production of goods, to concentration on buying up smaller companies that dealt in money: mortages, investments, credit cards, insurance, and the like. The original workers, in Schenectady, N.Y., were whittled down over many years, before Welch, from some 40,000 workers during the years of World War II and after, to about 4,000 today.

During the past several decades, an annual event was the picketing of the former GE headquarters in Schenectady by retirees who were asking for modest increases in their pensions, although doubling of their pensions (say, $600 a month) would not have been sufficient. They got nothing. When Welch was criticized about the disparity in pay and compensation and his apparent lack of compassion for those who do the work and make the money for GE, he was described as “vehemently” opposing any interference from the Securities and Exchange Commission or any other outside group or regulatory force, insisting that the free market should be the sole determinant for CEO pay. If there were a free market, that might work, but in an economy that is continually contracting into fewer and fewer hands, that's not an option.

A case in point is the sale of GE's locomotive workers in Erie, Pa., where the company said in 2018 that it planned to end most locomotive production in Erie, Pa., by year-end, moving it to Fort Worth, Texas, according to the Erie Times-News, which also speculated that the business will likely be sold or spun off soon. It was sold, to Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corp. (WABTEC), which immediately tried to lower pay for new workers in negotiations with Locals 506 and 618 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). The union representing some 1,700 workers, struck over that issue and others for nine days ending early this month. In this highly-skilled work, workers' hourly pay was about $36 an hour and WABTEC wanted the union to accept as little as $20 an hour for new workers. The two sides have 90 days to reach full settlement.

That, however, is the way GE and other corporations do business. The threat of moving companies and work to other countries has hung over the heads of workers for the last three or four decades and, often, they have accepted the downgrading of their pay, benefits, pensions, just to keep their jobs. In the unionized sector, that downward trend has been somewhat slower, but it has happened nonetheless.

Welch preceded the presidency of Donald Trump, of course, but he and Trump think alike, with the president declaring during the Republican primary campaign for president that American workers are paid too much, that this is the reason that the U.S. economy is not as robust as it should be. Apparently, both Trump and Welch adhere to the same principle of economics: Workers are needed to produce, but they should be paid as little as possible, otherwise, how could Welch accumulate such a fortune, going from a chemical engineer to CEO of the a once-great company. And, for Trump, how could he brag about being “very rich,” without stiffing workers and contractors and going bankrupt when convenient. Welch's worth is reported to be about $750 million, while Trump's worth, although he's said to be a billionaire (he told us), there are those who say he is in the hole for some $275 billion. The people don't know the actual value of Trump's holdings or much about his business dealings, even as he has been president, because he has refused to release his tax returns. He's still working the crowd.

Perhaps Fortune magazine said it best about General Electric, in sub-headline in May 2018: “What the Hell Happened at GE? Few corporate meltdowns have been as swift and dramatic as General Electric’s over the past 18 months—but the problems started long before that.” To the fundamental question, most (North) Americans and GE workers might have a short answer: Avarice or greed.

Avarice, according to Quora, “tends to refer specifically to wealth and money, typically associated with miserliness and hoarding. Greed is more sensual, associated with over consumption. The word originated as greed for food and was extended to refer to wealth.” Both words could be, and should be, applied to the CEOs of GE, but it also describes most of the 1 percent and especially, to the 0.01 percent of the populace. Avarice, to a very great extent, explains the disparity in wealth between the small economic and financial elite and the other 90 percent of the people. As the substance of the nation and society is drained to flow into the pockets of people like Welch and Culp, there is less and less chance that equality will be achieved, whether in the economy, the social sphere, educationally, or culturally. This a dangerous situation, especially since the 1 percent, led by Trump, is stirring up fear and loathing among some of the electorate, who the president is calling upon to seek retribution if he is called to account or loses the 2020 election.

Culp and Welch and Trump are not anomalies. They are the heart of the problem and it is because of their kind that there is endless war, violently imbalanced budgets, the suffering of the poor and minorities and the destruction of the environment, the source of all life. Only action by the people will change what the bullies and would-be rulers have wrought and it will have to be done by taking to the streets, since other means of communication are not very effective.