Steven Crowder Defends CEO Salaries, Calls Bernie Sanders ‘Selfish A-Hole’
Steven Crowder came down hard on Bernie Sanders, Samantha Bee, and socialists in general on the latest episode of his popular Louder with Crowder podcast.
Sanders admits to being a socialist. He has declared in past speeches and debates — most recently in the CNN-televised face-off with Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz — that healthcare should be a right to all Americans.
Criticisms of Bernie are that while he’s good at throwing out ideas, he’s not very good at explaining how to pay for them, something Cruz hit him on repeatedly at last week’s confrontation.
When Steven Crowder weighed in on the new episode, he was not quite as diplomatic in his takedown. To illustrate what he perceives to be the weaknesses in socialism, Crowder zeroed in on criticisms Samantha Bee, and Bernie Sanders made on the topic of CEO pay.
Samantha Bee lauds CNN for serving the public “for almost half a day” https://t.co/6diViTPz6K pic.twitter.com/hSzUU6ZMmg
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) February 9, 2017
Using the Walmart CEO as an example, Steven pointed out a criticism that the top-level exec made $19 million last year.
Crowder said that if you bring in a “big fish” to a financial firm, “you typically get a finder’s fee of around 6 percent, so let’s apply that principle to CEOs.”
While Steven admitted it isn’t how CEOs operate, he acknowledged the value of Walmart’s CEO, who oversees a workforce of 1.5 million and “puts money back into the pockets of employees.”
Currently, Crowder said, the CEO earns a theoretical “finder’s fee” of $13 per employee for Walmart’s entire workforce. Taking the 6 percent logic and a round number average of $30,000 per employee, Steven said the CEO’s pay should technically be $2.7 billion per year, “so the fact it’s $19 million isn’t that big of a deal.”
“I’m not saying he should be paid more, I’m not saying he should be paid less,” Crowder continued.
“What I am saying is the classist politics played by Samantha Bee and Bernie Sanders are required to keep you in the dark. Nineteen million dollars for a company with 1.5 million employees is actually remarkably low. For the socialism that Bernie Sanders wants, it has to appeal to the lowest portions of our humanity. You have to not provide context and say, ‘Here’s a big number. Nineteen million!’ You have to buy votes through jealousy, through envy, through covetousness.”
Crowder said that for Sanders and Bee’s argument to work, it requires them not provide context as to the work involved, the risk-reward ratio, what the CEO is making per employee, how much money is being injecting into the economy because of their job creation, and other lives that are improved from the person having started or successfully managed the business.
To conclude, Steven blasted Bee and Sanders with the harshest critique of all, applying it to anyone who would think as they do politically as well.
“So I think we should stop using the word ‘compassionate conservatism.’ I think conservatism is compassionate, and you’ve got to be a jealous a**hole to want to be a socialist,” Crowder said.
Government rations health care, Cruz argues. The US rations it by making it too expensive for some, Sanders answers. https://t.co/HAhU3MmiMf pic.twitter.com/PeYq17Oly8
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) February 8, 2017
Steven Crowder has already been met with pushback on Twitter, but for now, he does not appear to be backing down, having aired an interview with Ted Cruz in which he bashes Sanders more pointedly. He has also issued open letters like, “Dear Democrats: Yes, You Really Do Hate America” and calling Bee a “lying SJW (social justice warrior).”
What do you think of the comments of Steven Crowder, readers? Does he have a point with CEO pay not being too high? Sound off in the comments section below.
[Featured Image by Gage Skidmore/Flickr Creative Commons/Resized and Cropped/CC BY-SA 2.0]
