Worrying about attrition is lip service. Cutting costs? That gets you a fat bonus.

Let’s be honest upfront here. Any discussion about bonus pay is a little fraught or confusing to most people. Why? In reality, a lot of people have no idea exactly what their salary represents or how it’s determined. Middle-class people are commonly raised with the idea that discussing money is gauche, so a lot of people don’t ask about their salary and how it’s determined — and this gives companies, as opposed to individuals, a lot of advantages during the hiring process. The whole deal with “money” and “transparency” is very far off in America, which has been hurting women and minorities for years.

Now throw bonus pay into this whole mess. As of late 2014, bonuses were making up a higher percentage of payrolls than ever before. I don’t have specific stats on bonus pay in 2016, but I’d assume this is trending upward. A lot of people tend to make more from bonus pay than their base salary, and oftentimes, bonus pay is contingent almost exclusively on revenue growth streams. I’m not knocking this per se — why would you hand extra money to someone if they weren’t generating money in the first place? — but the bonus structure in most American companies is creating a lot of subsequent side issues.

Consider the CEO compensation ratio. I think the CEO is obviously an important member…