<p>I think this article series is a ploy by the Wall Street Journal to suck in more readers. Bravo for them! Every newspaper needs more readers.</p>
<p>Any truth in it? Perhaps. But I do know he’s got his IQ figures wrong.</p>
<p>A right wing conspiracy, no doubt.</p>
<p>
I guess I’ll have to step up and be that person. The discussions at my kitchen table every night at supper were plenty “heady, intellectual, artistic…” More so than much of what the classrooms & professors at Rutgers provided. So, yeah, for me the best thing about college was the “sheepskin” and the ticket into a worry-free UMC lifestyle. (Oh, and meeting hubby.)</p>
<p>One of the most brilliant, perceptive writers I’ve ever been exposed to is Eric Hoffer, a self-educated longshoreman. The True Believer is classic, and proves that a “larger, richer view of the world” can be attained without a university education. In fact, much of the indoctrination that passes for education today can narrow one’s world view rather quickly. Some truck dispatchers are Civil War buffs. Some cops boast very eclectic, sophisticated musical taste. Really.</p>
<p>More food for thought on other people’s pay.
From a letter to the editor</p>
<p>CEO greed</p>
<p>CEO greed’ pales against celebrities
In response to two Op-Ed articles published Sunday titled “Greed and Poverty,” it sure sounds terrible that the business executives who lead the organizations that provide wages and benefits for us working stiffs get paid so much! Oh the outrage!
But when artists, athletes, broadcasters, and such (most with left-leaning political views) make egregious salaries, where is the outrage?
The Forbes Celebrity 100 list identifies compensation for prominent celebrities in the period June 2005 to June 2006 as follows:
– 16 musicians, average annual pay: $46 million;
– seven writers, average annual pay: $34 million;
– 52 actors/actresses and producers, average annual pay: $31 million;
– 34 athletes, average annual pay: $25 million and
–14 broadcasters, average annual pay: $24 million.
I took the total compensation (salary, bonus, value of options exercised, etc.) of a sampling of 16 corporate CEOs from 2005 to 2006 proxy statements - admittedly not a scientific sample, but covering a range of enterprises including the Trump Organization, GE and smaller companies. Average annual CEO compensation: $20.5 million.
The celebrities provide us with no more than entertainment - they neither create nor expand opportunities for the “little people”; compare this to the accomplishments of the corporate leaders. Aren’t the celebrities greedy?
Unfortunately, there are few data available to pin down the compensation of the most egregious of the greedy gougers: trial lawyers. John Edwards, that champion of the “little people” is reputed to have put away upwards of $70 million from ambulance chasing before embarking on his political career, and is constructing a $3 million McMansion in North Carolina. Doesn’t he qualify as “greedy”?</p>
<p>P.S. My car mechanic charges $112 per hour.</p>
<p>( My shrink charges $210 & I have to go see him, much more than I have to take my car in to the shop- however that is also why my appts are for 15 min, not an hour)</p>
<p>But is that what your mechanic * makes* or what the shop charges?
The shop I take my car to, charges about $45 an hour & much of that is covered by my outside extended warranty.</p>
<p>Not only is John Edwards a greedy,hypocritical phoney, but he is largely responsible for the dearth of OB/GYNs in many areas.</p>
<p>Barrons, the fundamental flaw in the “actors are more overpaid than CEOs” argument is that the compensation of performers - actors, athletes, etc. - is rationally based on how much money they bring to their “employer.” If Brad Pitt being in a movie will generate an extra $10M in revenue he’s worth at least $9M more than Joe no-name actor. And when their drawing power wanes, so too does their income. Performers are better compared to inventors. Invent the next great thing and you can make millions. Of course, there’s lots of would-be next best thing inventors starving out there, just like there are lots of poor actors and minor-league ball players.</p>
<p>But CEOs get their pay regardless of the performance of the company - which frequently has little to do with how well that CEO did his (usually) job anyway. CEO pay is set by a socialistic exercise of having a compensation committee of cronies set a “fair” compensation level to be paid out of other peoples (the shareholders) money. It’s the closest thing to Soviet-style communism we have in America today.</p>
<p>Some do some don’t. Not every Brad Pitt movie is a hit either.</p>
<p>It doesn’t have to be a hit. It just has to make more money than a flop without Brad Pitt. Once his box office draw starts to wane, so does his pay. The forecasting isn’t any more perfect there than it is in any other area of life, but you can be sure that the producers, ball club owners, broadcast media companies, etc. do a hard nosed financial analysis of their investment’s payoff before they sign a “star” to a contract. For writers and musicians it’s even more straightforward: they are generally paid a percentage of the revenue their product brings in. Again: capitalism at work. CEO pay: socialistic cronyism. But you won’t read that in Forbes, will you?</p>
<p>I can name 50 athletes who got big contracts and failed to produce what was expected. If a CEO has a few flops he is joining Chevy Chase in oblivion. At least most CEOs work very hard trying to do well. Some succeed and some fail just like in every other area of life. The average tenure is around 6 years or so. It’s a tough gig.</p>
<p>Sticker…I know plenty of people who went to college for the ticket to the middle class. My FIL is a major example, a true Horatio Alger of the Fortune 500 world–he went right to the top 1/2% on a busienss degree earned at night and wouldn’t know a TS Eliot poem if it hit him in the face. Fair enough. Every good life does not need a heady intellectual aspect. Interestingly, my FIL hoped to give that aspect to his children and not all took up the baton. He now wants that aspect for his grandchildren.</p>
<p>And in my 30 years on construction sites, I met a few carpenters who read literary magazines during their ‘Smoko’ breaks–but they were few and far between. Most construction men are visibly wist-ful about the education that I was given–the luxury of time to read and ponder. They have been swinging hammers and welding pipes and wires since they were 18. They articulate that envy–all around the world.</p>
<p>Most want to provide that gift of educational time, aka ‘college’, for their children.</p>
<p>cheers, why is your FIL giving up on his chance to explore other facets of an intellectual life? What’s stopping him? Presumably, he’s set financially & could now read & ponder to his heart’s content. Why don’t you encourage him to follow along with his grandchildren’s reading lists & then engage them in discussions?</p>
<p>My s was one of those toddlers who would stand forever at every construction site, frozen in fascination. One day one of the roofers yelled down at him, “Hey kid! Go to school! This ain’t so fascinating!”</p>
<p>I should clarify that my purpose in attending college was not for the UMC lifestyle. That’s just what I can honestly say turned out to be the 2nd best thing I got out of it. (Again, must give hubby the #1 spot.) The “life of the mind” was always something valued by my family, so not attending college would not have shut down my love of reading & lively discussions. But it would have drastically cut down the amount of time available to pursue such things.</p>
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<p>Could it be that people were misinterpreting this statement? Where do you get the notion that it argues that CCs prepare better workers? It just says that CCs, by providing remedial math and English classes, are offering unprepared high school grads the knowledge they need to actually have a better chance at receiving a degree AND a worthwhile education in the long run.</p>
<p>my H is a contractor, and the generalization made about them, well, I must disagree</p>
<p>I know some book learned people that are real imbeciles</p>