A PLAN FOR CEO PAY
Is there no uptick in the economy to bring us cheer? Wages are stagnant, jobs are down, stock prices are in the ditch, corporate profits are sliding … but, wait, here it is, just when you thought nothing was on the rise, here’s an economic indicator soaring up, up, and awaaaaayyy: It’s the pay of CEOs!
Even if a company’s stock plummets, its workers are fired, and its accountants are under federal investigation for cooking the books and looting the pension fund – the boss hog is still wallowing in the big bucks, now taking an average of more than $11 million a year in personal pay.
Well, the bosses oink, we deserve it – besides, we’re just being paid what the market will bear. It’s how capitalism works, so get over it.
But hold it right there, bucko. Doesn’t capitalism now operate in a global market? Haven’t you been telling us that you don’t have to pay fair wages to American workers, because you can roam the global labor market and get workers for, say, 13 cents an hour in China – or even import skilled software engineers from, say, India to work for a third of the pay of U.S. workers?
Yes, you have. So here’s my plan: Let’s import CEOs! We can get them a whole lot cheaper from abroad – and get good ones, too. Did you know that the top bosses of major corporations in Europe, Japan, Latin America, and elsewhere are delighted to do CEO work for only a million or two a year?
American corporate bosses now are hauling away about 500 times the pay of a typical worker in their corporations – not exactly a plus for company morale. But the ethic in other countries is much more fair – bosses in Mexico, for example, are paid only 45 times what the typical worker makes, while in England it’s 25 times, and in Japan it’s 10 times.
So come on, you boards of directors, start thinking outside the box and applying a little global competition to the executive suite. Isn’t that how capitalism works?
‘CONSERVATIVES’ PUSH FOR MORE BIG BROTHER
Time for another Gooberhead Award – presented periodically to those in the news whose tongues are moving 100 miles an hour, but who forgot to put their brains in gear.
Today’s Gooberhead is Rep. Candice Miller, a Michigan Republican who has written a bill that will effectively require all Americans to start carrying a national ID card. The idea of having to “show your papers” has been an anathema to liberty-loving Americans since the founding of our nation; yet, ironically, so-called “conservatives” like Miller are now demanding such autocracy.
This legislation would authorize the homeland security czar to require all states to standardize everyone’s driver license. The czar would set federal rules for the data that people would have to provide to get a license, requiring that every state license include such data. The feds could require your fingerprints, eye prints, or any other personal identifying information – thus nationalizing our driver licenses.
Yet Rep. Miller, obtuse to the Orwellian nature of her own bill, says blithely: “I don’t think this is anything that should cause anyone concern.” No, it should not cause concern – it should cause us apoplexy!
Not only would she let the homeland czar usurp the authority of states, but she also lets the feds require all of the states to funnel our license info into a linked, national database that will be available to a broad range of government agencies and corporations.
This amounts to a back-door way of creating a national ID card. If it passes, you won’t be able to get on an airplane, rent a car, enter a government building, or otherwise move about freely without showing your federally sanctioned papers. It creates a new system of internal passports for what we once hailed as the Land of the Free.
This article appears in November 5 • 2004.