Two years ago, I put together a fantasy portfolios of stocks. Included therein was one that appealed to me because a former subordinate is an officer of the company. I looked him up in the financial information for the company and saw that his earnings are in the neighborhood of $10million annually. All I can say is, “Wow!” So I immediately started questioning what the heck was going on. My first thoughts were how much is enough and is he really worth that much? Can’t say that there wasn’t some envy involved but it was quickly dispelled with good reasoning. Besides, “Maintaining a favorable opinion, I remain positive and constructive.”
I know this guy fairly well, or did, and I don’t think the money is the whole thing in his case, it’s large but more as a measure of success. He has worked himself into a position where that’s what it pays. If this corp didn’t pay him this amount they would be paying someone else and conversely if they didn’t pay him this much he would move on to another corporation. It has taken me a long time to rationalize this because it is more than this one instance; it is the landscape of publicly held corps, the medical and legal professions, major league sports, and other few but highly lucrative professions where the bidding for top talent is off the chart. This doesn’t mean it is wrong; corps are making enough profit to pay the execs these salaries and perks and still give the shareholders a good return on investment. BTW, the portfolios and his company haven’t returned to the value they had when I assembled them; thank goodness I kept them as fantasy investments. His value, in options and other stock related pay has taken a hit but it is still more than he could spend.
A couple of lines for the part I have in “It’s a Wonderful Life” as Pop Bailey brought the thing home to me. “What makes you such a hard skulled character Mr. Potter? You have no children, no family; you can’t begin to spend all the money you’ve got.” And, “Potter’s a sick man George, sick in his heart, sick in his soul, if he has one. Hates everybody that has anything that he can’t have, hates us mostly I guess.” These two lines define a character who has allowed money to become the end instead of the means. It becomes a warning to us all; not only money but things. I already have more clothes than I could ever wear, more golf balls than I could ever lose, more books that I won’t read again, and on and on and on. We are all a little bit like Mr. Potter and that’s ok, it’s when it becomes an obsession that it is harmful, as in my story The Ball Hawk. (see the By John Lina Blog or buy a copy of Open Floodgate by John Lina for only $19.95 plus mailing. Drop me an Email and I’ll take your order.)
As for the huge compensation figures, I think we are stuck with them unless there is a disastrous overturning of the hierarchies, one to rival the French and Bolshevik Revolutions. I’ve complained about hierarchies before but we’re stuck with them unless…
This is the role of anarchy, the dismantling of hierarchies and replacement by others, less offensive. There is a crescendo of greed, a revolution of the oppressed, anarchy in the meantime until a structure is put in place to replace the anarchy and one that is agreeable to enough of the masses. We had a mini- revolution in 1994 and we may have another this year. It happened several other times during US history that the electorate was fed up with enough of what was going on in the Federal Government that they replaced incumbents wholesale.
The ballot box is a relief valve but there is none for corporate greed. One may not be necessary for relief from corporate greed but we see the downside affect of it in salaries paid to hierarchies in government, medicine, and legal organizations and these affect all who are paying for these services. The “what about me?” attitude of civil servants, surgeons and lawyers is going to lead to a revolution of some kind; I don’t know how or when but people are beginning to see it for what it is, greed at the expense of their fellows. Heck if I can see it, there are millions of others who do as well. According to Bert it was a factor for anti-Semitism in Europe and look to what that led. The straw is piling up on the camel’s back
These types of feelings, undefined emotional reactions against the “Medical Profession,” may be a big part of what led to Medicare and now Obamacare. Doctors are not the problem, the problem is administrators of practices and hospitals that wring every penny they can out of a patient or his insurance company and dictate to the providers, doctors and nurses, how much time and effort they can spend with a patient. So-called not for profit hospitals can’t spend all the money they make without going to excess for admin salaries, perks, facilities and equipment. Then the reaction of the insurance company is to do the same to the policy holders and even deprive people of inclusion, in effect cut them off from treatment because of the profit and loss implications.
You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth. We don’t know how to do it; we can’t separate ourselves from the greed and trying to have all the money there is. So we are doomed to continue funneling money into the pockets of the MBA’s who have become quite adept raising the compensation levels of just about everybody in an organization who is not directly involved in providing the sold product or service. Bring out the guillotine, pass me my knitting needles.
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