Charlotte, North Carolina FinTech LendingTree Inc's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase Was a Completely Off-the-Charts 272.6% Per Year During the Past Five Years

I think that Pete Buttigieg was the clear winner in last night's debate, very successfully warding off a vicious barrage of strange attacks from several parties.  Amy Klobuchar was the clear loser, attacking Pete irrationally as if she were acting in desperation.  Her nastiness here is consistent with the rumor that she does not treat her own staff well.

I have researched and made posts related to Top-Tier Executive Total Compensation in most of the largest companies headquartered in the four earliest 2020 Democratic Primary States ..... Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Then, of the 14 Super Tuesday US States holding their 2020 Democratic Presidential Primaries on March 3, 2020, I made like posts related to most of the largest Texas Companies, most of the largest Southern California companies and also most of the largest technology companies headquartered in Northern California.

My research has shown that Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Tom Steyer are all spot on when they assert that US Corporate Financial Corruption is rampant.  But the problem is that none of the three have any clue on precisely the cause or how to effectively fix this huge problem which is also the primary cause of the huge, continuing US income inequality expansion which has been occurring for decades.

But even worse, even though he is a very nice man, Joe Biden is so naive that he isn't even aware of the extent of this continuing huge US income inequality expansion or precisely its cause which has been occurring under his nose for the past forty plus years, nor is he aware of, or else has decided to ignore, just how huge the largest US tax shelters are which are located right under his nose in his home State of Delaware, mostly in one Wilmington building.

On the negative side, voting for many years for the Annual Income Tax Loophole Extenders which dramatically increased income inequality expansion each year were Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar.  On the positive side, voting for many years against these same Annual Income Tax Loophole Extenders were Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

So far in my research of large US Corps I have shown that their Top-Tier Executives have been rewarded continually with just enormous annual percentage increases in pay and employee benefits, mostly stock equity compensation, to the extent that the key issue to US citizens should be the huge and continuing Income Inequality Expansion which is at the core of many critical problems the US faces.

While increasing the US federal minimum wage will help here, this would be just a drop in the bucket as compared to the fact that the annual percentage increase in the pay and employee benefits of Company non-executive employees are minuscule in relation to that of Company executive employees and this has been going on for decades.  When Corporate CEOs and CFOs primarily view non-executive employees as Costs rather than as People, this is what happens.  And neither political party has had the courage to take on US Corps here.

But this huge pay inequality problem also exists widely in the non-profit sector including in non-profit hospitals.  And it also exists widely in state and local governments, especially in public education.

So now I will be addressing Top-Tier Executive Compensation for five to ten years in some of the largest companies in the State of North Carolina, one of the 14 Super Tuesday 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary US States.  I'll first address some of the largest North Carolina Financial Companies and then later some of the largest North Carolina Non-Financial companies.

I will be doing this research mostly by stock market capitalization and thus the fourth North Carolina financial company that I am addressing here is FinTech LendingTree Inc.

From annual compensation information contained in Proxy Statement filings with the US SEC, the chart at the very bottom below shows LendingTree's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of the two consecutive full years of employment for the past five years.  

LendingTree's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase was a completely off-the-charts 272.6% per year during the past five years, which is by far the highest of the four large North Carolina companies I have addressed so far.

1. LendingTree +272.6% per year for the past five years
2. First Citizens Bancshares +15.9% per year for the past five years
3. BB&T Corp +15.1% per year for the past ten years
4. Bank of America +6.0% per year for the past five years

So who is causing these extremely high Top-Tier Executives pay percentages increases, which tend to be much higher than the Companies' actual financial performance?

And who is causing the annual minuscule raises for the company non-executive employees? 

Generally it works like this.

The Company's Board of Directors set the pay standards for the total compensation of the CEO for each year.  And in LendingTree's case, the Chairman of the Board is also the CEO, which causes a problem right off the bat. 

  

Then the CEO establishes the pay standards for the Top-Tier Executives, which is reviewed by the Company's Board of Directors.  

And the CEO also usually approves the overall pay and employee benefits annual percentage increases for each of the other levels of the Company's employees.

So who is this huge, continuing Company pay and employee benefit income inequality "on"?

Clearly it's "on" the Company's CEO and the Company's Board of Directors.

It's simple math.  The lower the annual percentage raise for the Company's non-executive employees, the higher the Company's annual profits and thus also the higher the annual percentage raise for the Company's executives since their annual pay raise is tied to Company profits.

The end result is massive, continuing income inequality expansion.


And the only way it will be fixed is by wisely-designed US Government tax legislation, which gives companies very nice tax incentives for paying non-executive employees very well in a given year and which also requires companies to pay a luxury tax when executives are paid clearly too much in a given year or when non-executive employees are clearly paid too little in a given year.

Why hasn't it been fixed? 

Because more than half of the US Congress, including more than a few Democrats, are effectively controlled by the US Corps or because the US President is controlled by the US Corps who are vigorously fighting to be at the top of the list of US Corps continuing to expand income inequality.

So how do you solve that problem?

Vote for US Senators, US House members and a US President who isn't controlled by the US Corps which view their non-executive employees and contract workers as Costs rather than as People ..... they all don't but a clear majority of them do.

It's that simple.

	FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec
LendingTree	2018	2017		2017	2016		2016	2015		2015	2014		2014	2013
Top-Tier	Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total
Executive	Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp
	$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s
Lebda Chairman and CEO	42,318	59,591		59,591	1,829		1,829	1,672		1,672	5,386		5,386	5,912
Moriarity CFO	N/A	N/A
Salvage President	793	12,347		12,347	1,312		1,312	681
Shumate Chief Accounting Officer	1,132	366		366	390		390	355		355	1,023
Dalporto Former CFO				650	684		684	628		628	2,145		2,145	940
Patel Chief Strategy Officer				580	630		630	545		545	2,718
Mandel CFO										N/A	N/A		1,955	403
Totals	44,243	72,304		73,534	4,845		4,845	3,881		3,200	11,272		9,486	7,255
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	-38.8%			1417.7%			24.8%			-71.6%			30.8%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		272.6%