Here are the salaries of 13 major world leaders

[pianist]

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he and almost everyone working for him would take a 10% pay cut because of mounting economic sanctions imposed on his country.

Whether Putin and his staff will actually feel the slash in their salaries is debatable, considering Putin says he is unaware of the amount printed on his paychecks. "Frankly, I don't even know my own salary; they just give it to me, and I put it away in my account," he reportedly said to a group of reporters during his annual Q&A session in December.

Putin's official salary is chump change compared with that of a prime minister of an island nation smaller than New York City.

Singapore's Lee Hsien Loong earns 12 1/2 times as much as Putin at a whooping $1.7 million. Loong's salary is large enough to pay for the combined salaries of the leaders of India, Brazil, Italy, Russia, France, Turkey, Japan, United Kingdom, South Africa, and Germany.

Loong's Singapore is also the world's most expensive city for a second year in a row, according to The Economist's bi-annual Worldwide Cost of Living report.

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/salari...00861.html

[sg550319]

He does not need his pay. Take a look at his net worth and where he hides his wealth. how do a government paid staff KGB amassed such a wealth????


http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/20...n-on-earth

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he and almost everyone working for him would take a 10% pay cut because of mounting economic sanctions imposed on his country.

Whether Putin and his staff will actually feel the slash in their salaries is debatable, considering Putin says he is unaware of the amount printed on his paychecks. "Frankly, I don't even know my own salary; they just give it to me, and I put it away in my account," he reportedly said to a group of reporters during his annual Q&A session in December.

Putin's official salary is chump change compared with that of a prime minister of an island nation smaller than New York City.

Singapore's Lee Hsien Loong earns 12 1/2 times as much as Putin at a whooping $1.7 million. Loong's salary is large enough to pay for the combined salaries of the leaders of India, Brazil, Italy, Russia, France, Turkey, Japan, United Kingdom, South Africa, and Germany.

Loong's Singapore is also the world's most expensive city for a second year in a row, according to The Economist's bi-annual Worldwide Cost of Living report.

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/salari...00861.html

[specuvestor]

That is the crux of the matter. You need to pay the policy makers well. I agree with this hard truth. These are the people who will actually make decisions that affects every citizen's life.

What I don't agree with is the calculation of pegging it to the mode of the 5 industries. I think pegging it even at 10X Median salary makes more sense to me

[corydorus]

10x is like max 40K monthly for a PM that run the whole country and million of life get impacted ?
Is not that the country cannot afford. I think LKY laid the foundation of sustainability. High Salary should not be in the equation. A corrupt leader can store away Billions.
A weak leader can cost many more Billions.

Many medium size CEO will beats that amount easily. And this CEO only run like 100k-300k people ... And you see many companies coming up and down like roller coaster. We need sustainability from one leader to the next. I would rather err on the side of higher pay. $5M for a leader is still cheap if we think deeper considering he is the super CEO of all CEOs in the country. I certainly would not mind how much he earns. The key focus I feel should be how we can have better life.

[specuvestor]

Firstly policy makers are not CEO who are PnL focused. If your overriding incentive is $, that is where your policy will be going. We have experienced it under the Singapore Inc regime and it was a wasted decade. Furthermore CEOs are interested in the next quarter. They mess up in the GFC and they can retire for life and let others pick up the pieces. You don't have such luxury in policy making. So it's a bad comparable.

IMHO the ideology and principle of the policy makers are the most important. People's impression of George Bush has changed dramatically after he left office. The final assessment is that this is a sincere guy who knows what needs to be done. He might not be the smartest guy but people started to realise his sincerity and principles are right. He was sincerely wrong in thinking WMD in Iraq. Seriously. Donald Rumsfeld should know better since he so buddy with Saddam and if I were Bush I would have listened to Donald as well.

Similarly I think we should pay Permanent Secretary well. They need to do a job efficiently and as effectively as laid by the policies. He can be a TT Durai for all I care. In fact Perm Sec can have a higher pay than elected Ministers if Asian paradigm can change.

But bottom line is that the pay is not to remunerate or even compensate for the opportunity cost for political office but to minimise any financial hardship with loss of privacy (ask Low Thia Kiang) and minimise cognitive dissonance. It is actually not so different from people in social services and religious organisations. "Minister" in old English actually means "Servant". Key is how to pay them enough that one has little incentive to be corrupt, especially and humanly, when they look at their neighbours. Not so different from Job's idea of how to make music cheap enough so that people don't pirate. Sounds utopian but it actually works.

For $40k a month I think it is still more than what most of the other leaders in the democratic world are commanding, including USA or China, if you want to compare in terms of pay per capita or per pax. Personally anything 10X to 20X makes sense ie you are putting in more value than the average man 10-20X but the benchmark pegged to median wage should be more reasonable than being the mode of top 5 professions, whereby the incentive would be to get rich FT become Singaporeans. IMHO that's what I'm seeing. But if peg to Median wage then the whole ball game changes.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102351121
"Mr Xi's monthly base income is roughly twice the average annual income of a registered Beijing city-dweller, according to data from the municipal bureau of statistics last year. That survey found that employees of state-owned firms earned on average nearly twice the salary of those in the private sector."

[CityFarmer]

Singapore PM salary is around S$3 mil pa. Malaysia PM salary is around MYR 23K pm, or slight below MYR 300K pa (taking 12 month-year). From face value, it is S$ 3 mil vs S$115K pa, which is more than 26x

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Singapore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Malaysia

But that exclude the private jet, costing RM28.8 million yearly in hire purchase and RM5.5 million in yearly maintenance cost, among other "allowances". The new comparison is S$3 mil vs S$115K + S$11m (hire purchase) + S$2 mil (maintenance cost), before considering other "allowances".

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malay...ays-rafizi

Which is "cheaper"? Hmm...

[corydorus]

Salary comparison is meaningless for a PM to me. I am more concern about how well he rule the country so that the citizens can benefit.
I will only be concern if I am a PM in other country looking for a raise.

[Damien]

Salary is a very big motivation for performance and motives in general. I am very sure they have their own KPIs, how well they rule the country is also affected by them. If they are not motivated, then I do not see the support for high salaries in the first place.

If you are saying giving huge paychecks will help minimise corruption and retain talent. This implies that the presidents earning substantially lesser are not as competent and corrupted.

[CityFarmer]

Salary is a very big motivation for performance and motives in general. I am very sure they have their own KPIs, how well they rule the country is also affected by them. If they are not motivated, then I do not see the support for high salaries in the first place.

If you are saying giving huge paychecks will help minimise corruption and retain talent. This implies that the presidents earning substantially lesser are not as competent and corrupted.

FYI, Singapore president isn't earn "substantially lesser", with a basic of about S$4.2-4.3 million pa. In fact, he earns more than PM, IIRC

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/singapore-pres...lion-.html

Reality, is, incentive is important, as important as getting the right people, for a sustainable system, IMO

[corydorus]

The function of the president is more of figure head though he has key to reserve. I don't see we can implied from PM paycheck. The scale of power and responsibilities are drastically different.