On Labor Day we customarily give a nod to America’s underpaid and overworked blue and pink collar workers – janitors, flight attendants, forklift operators and the like. But this year let’s go a step further and salute the most reviled and despised of the people who make our economy happen, the mere mention of whom causes the average forklift operator to spit on the floor. You are thinking perhaps of telemarketers, human traffickers, and the fiends who answer the phone when you to try to make a claim on your health insurance. But I’m talking about our CEOs.
Just in time for the holiday, two liberal groups – United for a Fair Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies – have issued a gleefully malicious new attack on our CEO class. They point out that the CEOs of large companies earn an average of $10.8 million a year, which is 362 times as much as the average American worker, and retire with $10.1 million in their special exclusive CEO pension funds. They further point out that the compensation of US CEOs wildly exceeds that of their European counterparts, who, we are invited to believe, work equally hard.
And, in what they must think is their cleverest point of all, the UFE/IPS folks state that: “The 20 highest-paid individuals at publicly traded corporations last year took home, on average, $36.4 million. That’s … 204 times more than the 20 highest-paid generals in the U.S. military.” You know what we’re supposed to think here: Wow, but generals have all that responsibility! They’re responsible for national security, or at least for conducting the wars that increase the threats to our national security and thus help justify ever greater increases in our national security apparatus!
But someone has to speak up for our beleaguered CEO class, and let me begin with that spurious comparison to the top military brass. Could we put patriotic emotion aside for a moment and look at this in a hard-headed, bottom-line, sort of way?
Suppose you are the general responsible for all the service people currently in Iraq, about 130,000 in round numbers, and suppose you manage to lose every single one of them in some ghastly miscalculation. With the death benefit for the family of a dead soldier running at $100,000, your mistake will cost a total of $13 billion. Sounds like a lot, I know, until you consider that a hedge fund manager or financial company CEO can lose that much in a single afternoon, without anyone even noticing. Q.E.D., there is simply no comparison between a general and a CEO.
That’s a side issue though. The real point, which the CEOs and their usual defenders are strangely reticent about making, is that it’s damn expensive to be rich, and extravagantly expensive to be super-rich. Before you start playing your air violins, consider the costs of maintaining up to five different homes, some of them up to 45,000 square feet in size, most with swimming pools, tennis courts, guest houses, and wine cellars requiring constant supervision.
The poor whine about having no home at all, or maybe a two-bedroom apartment for a family of six. They should just think for one moment of the tribulations involved in running four or more mansions, each with its own full-time staff. There’s the problem of getting between them, for example. A friend of mine, of very modest means himself, consults for a billionaire couple who commute between London and Los Angeles by private jet, with their dogs following in a second private jet.
But much of what we know about the extreme costs of wealth comes from Wall Street Journal columnist Robert Frank’s recent book Richistan. The ultra-rich, who are drawn largely from the CEO class, require staffs of about 40-50 people, including not only cooks, maids and nannies, but “lifestyle managers” (to set up the entertainment schedule) and – in a throw-back to the original gilded age -- butlers. It’s the butler’s job, among other things, to deal with any issues that may arise from the proliferation of homes. For example, if the boss is in Palm Beach, Frank reports, “and wants to send his jet to New York to pick up a Chateau LaTour from his South Hampton cellar, the butler makes it happen, no questions asked.”
Nor are the ultra-rich in a position to cut back on their expenses – by, say, running down to the supermarket for a $12 bottle of chardonnay. If they were to do so, their friends would despise them. As Frank explains, the Richistani word “affluent,” meaning someone with less than $10 million in assets, translates into English roughly as “scum.”
A mean-spirited critic of the ultra-rich CEO class might grumble that the rich should simply find a new circle of friends. But who exactly might these new friends be? If you were in the $100- million-in-assets set, you could hardly consort with the class of people for whom a pittance like $10,000 might be a transformative sum, possibly allowing granny to get her insulin and the children to have warm winter clothes. People of that class could not be trusted not to pocket the silverware or rip out the gold fixtures in your powder room. They might even make a lunge for your throat.
(Barbara Ehrenreich admits to being on the board of the Institute for Policy Studies.)
The human race never seems to learn from history do they? The birth of the modern age is characterized by revolutions througout Europe where the poor working class sought to overthrow the ruling elite due to their flagrant excesses. They had the balls to speak up and do something about it. Nowadays all we do is whine about the inequality. It's pathetic. When are we going to speak up and do something about it? I mean really do something about it. It's time for another revolution, I say. Off with their heads and clear their bank accounts!
Posted by: A Canadian | August 30, 2007 at 09:51 AM
Problem is everyone wants to be the super rich and we're sold this "dream" every day through everything from lottery commercials to the old "if you work hard enough..." ideals.
All this affluence in the face of poverty and dire poverty is stomach churning.
Posted by: Dr. Steph (another Canadian) | August 30, 2007 at 12:27 PM
While we're giving a nod to working people, how about a special nod to those who work on Labor Day (and all other holidays) while the bosses are off? My hat is off to them.
Posted by: Chickensh*tEagle | August 30, 2007 at 01:20 PM
i went to united for fair economy website and read a portion of the executive excess 2007 report. it keeps repeating that the top twenty ceos earn compensation which the authors deem as excessive. on page eight is this quote:
The vast rewards that go to business leaders
in the United States
represent a marketplace
failure.
i am interested to know how creation of great wealth is charaterized as a marketplace failure and not characterized as a failure to redistribute wealth which apparently is the goal of taxes and government. the wisdom of taking from the wealthy and giving to the poor in contrast to maturing a fertile environment for creating relative wealth for the poor is an incidental question. the purpose of the marketplace is to create wealth. now if the wealth is not distributed in a fashion which various groups deem as fair/just/ethical, i am not seeing how the purpose of the marketplace is to correct this inequality. if you think the beast must be tamed because 20 or 200 or 2000 guys out of 300 million are making what you deem as too much money, dont turn to the marketplace and expect it to reprove these guys. tempest in a tea pot.
Posted by: roger | August 30, 2007 at 01:59 PM
I completely agree with A Canadian. We're overdue for a revolution because our values system is broken.
For every ultra-rich person there are thousands like Patricia. Read her story here:
http://www.unitedprofessionals.org/blog/2007/08/30/striving-to-attain-the-american-dream/
The disparity between people like her -- and most of us -- and the ultra-rich is obscene. These conditions will bring about the revolution. I'm ready for it.
Posted by: buena | August 30, 2007 at 01:59 PM
fine fine. what income level is the arbitrary line at which wealth become a flagrant excess and an obscene condition. what percentage of federal taxes does the wealthy pay. partial birth abortion is a choice but money is obscene and flagrant.
Posted by: roger | August 30, 2007 at 02:35 PM
The problem is not that there are rich and poor. The problem is that people are not raised to be content with their station in life but want to be equal to their betters. A good system would be a class system based on birth, with some limited opportunity for improvement, the way it used to be in Europe before the French revolution, for example.
An essential difference was that the rich were less selfish and sometimes had a paternalistic attitude towards various inferiors whom they helped. For instance, a noble individual might develop a lasting bond with the child of his or her wet nurse, breastfed during the same period. That child was almost like a sister or brother, although likely to remain a social inferior (but one who might be helped by the noble, made a trusted servant, etc.). Or, if an important person become a child's godfather or godmother, that child was similarly guaranteed protection. Important people supported various attendants who were there mostly to keep them company and show off. Things like that alleviated economic problems and created links between members of the various social classes, and also taught everybody where they stand, socially. Moreover, families were close-knit and did not want to be embarrassed by having relatives who did not live, even if marginally, at the right socio-economic level.
This is probably the second-best system after a socialist or communist system. There is still no equality, but at least people know their place and may even be proud of their connection with the House of [insert the nobles' family name], even if they are just servants or unimportant members of the House.
It is precisely because, instead of staying home and ruling over people on their lands, the nobles started to mingle with the other nobles in court circles that the feudal system broke down. If only the modern rich people had many servants but cared about them, even to the extent of having dinner together at a large table every day, and if poor people did not believe that they are as good as the rich and deserve to get rich, too, things would be much better.
This system could coexist with some benevolent slavery (not based on race, of course). That way, one way or another, the rich would have to care for the poor and the poor would know their place.
Posted by: Monica | August 30, 2007 at 09:02 PM
"The ultra-rich, who are drawn largely from the CEO class,"
Are they? And there I wsa, thinking that actually they made up a small proportion of it. Entrepreneurs, celebrities, movie makers, sportsmen, at least, according to the actual research, make up the majority.
Posted by: Tim Worstall | August 31, 2007 at 02:36 AM
This being a consumer economy, it would seem we should boycott their product/services as much as possible. "Boycott" means not to give them money. We may not starve a monster, but do we have to feed it? Do we have any room for discretion here?
Posted by: BW | August 31, 2007 at 03:53 AM
I'm sorry, but did I miss something here, Monica? Sarcasm doesn't always come through in electronic media; please tell me you're joking.
"Benevolent slavery?" You're kidding, right? You make it sound like there have never been tyrants—only kindly benefactors. That peasants have the good life (well, at least they ate their vegetables and got plenty of exercise, eh?). That people actually enjoy breaking their backs so "Massa" can have his clean, crisp linens.
So which caste would you be volunteering for, Monica? The "betters" or the "inferiors?" Would you prefer to be a member of an inbred, retarded elite (think King Tutankhamen, King George III or Paris Hilton), or the noble, down-trodden proletariat?
Sounds like you think you'd come out on top of the pyramid in the world you describe. It reminds me of those people who claim to remember a past life: they always insist they were somebody important—Napoleon's sister, or a pope, or the Duke of Wellington—when in reality (if you can call past lives reality) they would have been shit-shovellers like the other 98% of the population.
Good joke, Monica.
Posted by: Mr. Bojangles | August 31, 2007 at 06:55 AM
Rest assured: my ancestors were "middle-class" (priests, teachers, scholars, for example) in Moldavia and Romania, and I heard that my paternal grandmother's family was noble (a known Romanian person descended from one of her sisters is now bragging about that), which is why I'm going to try to find out more about my ancestry. I'm curious (but then, that may not be possible to find out) if any boyars in my family owned any gipsy slaves, as noble families in that area often did before slavery was outlawed.
Posted by: Monica | August 31, 2007 at 08:04 AM
Barbara, no disrespect intended, but if your CEO or any hedge fund manager happens to lose 13 billion in any single afternoon, trust me, it will not go unnoticed.
There would be some serious repercussions when a melt down like that happens.
Ask Chris. He will be glad to share his thoughts I'm sure.
Posted by: Larry In Lethbridge | August 31, 2007 at 10:27 AM
larry-still-stewing-in-lethbridge:
Did you catch your flight to New York, Larry?
Posted by: chris | August 31, 2007 at 01:29 PM
Barbara writes:
"A friend of mine, of very modest means himself, consults for a billionaire couple who commute between London and Los Angeles by private jet, with their dogs following in a second private jet."
The preceding sentence is an outright lie. Actually, it's an Urban Myth. If it were true, the name of the billionaire would have appeared in the story.
A tale like this, if true, would have been repeated in reputable and credible news venues around the world. FACTS about the spending habits of billionaires sell newspapers. Phony claims about nameless "billionaires" populate the fantasies of people wishing such statements were true.
Posted by: chris | August 31, 2007 at 01:36 PM
Chris chirps away in a manner fueled by his Ritalin dependency:
"Did you catch your flight to New York, Larry?"
Sure thing Sport. I'm in Montauk right now chillaxing at my friends "cottage", laughing about guys whose lives evolve around harrassing bloggers with differing opinions.
You vehemently state to Barbara :
The preceding sentence is an outright lie. Actually, it's an Urban Myth
You continue to lose your composure by saying:
"A tale like this, if true, would have been repeated in reputable and credible news venues around the world".
Well, it is now obvious you don't know too many wealthy people nor are you privy to any even near this social circle. I thought you came from common stock. Some commoners don't know millionaires let alone billioniares.
The simple truth of this matter is billionaires can do just about anything they wish and do it very quietly.
God, I thought you were a lot smarter Chris. I think you have run your course.
Have nice weekend sweating at Red Hook Fields.
Posted by: Larry In Lethbridge | August 31, 2007 at 02:17 PM
Progressives like Barbara E. always complain about the excessive salaries of CEOs. But they don't seem to have any problem with the excessive salaries of Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities.
They probably think it's ok for Oprah, because she has special talent and it's hard to find anyone like her. Ok, well can't the same argument be made about CEOs? Aren't they paid outrageous salaries because someone has decided they're especially talented and unusual?
Barbara E. resents the rich and successful and admires the poor and the unsuccessful. I think we should admire the rich and successful, and maybe learn from their example, and we should feel compassion for failures and semi-failures and try to teach them by our own example.
I realize there is a lot of luck involved, not just talent. There might be millions who could do Oprah's job, while the lady who washes the floor might be a talented opera singer who never got a break. That is certainly possible.
But it is not all luck. Highly successful people usually have more drive and focus than average.
Barbara E. is herself an example of a highly successful writer, and my guess is that she's hardworking and dedicated to her career. She probably does ok financially. But she never tries to encourage unsuccessful people to be more like her, to work hard at something and improve their lives.
Just the opposite, she tells them that your attitude makes no difference and positive thinking will not help. Blame the system and fate for your failures and keep dreaming about a worker's revolution.
I agree that many things are wrong and unfair in our system, and many reforms are needed. I think we should respect ordinary people more and worship celebrities less.
But we are always, always going to admire and reward some individuals more than others.
Posted by: realpc | August 31, 2007 at 04:56 PM
lying-larry-still-in-lethbridge, you wrote:
"I'm in Montauk right now..."
But Larry, you swore you were coming to New York City to confront me. Where you lying or afraid?
By the way, the gossip pages of many newspapers and a large number of glossy magazines run stories about the excesses of the wealthy in every edition.
As a canadian who lives in an out-of-the-way hamlet best known for its dumb-grin inducing sunniness, you wouldn't know about snoopy reporters who are well paid to discover and report on the private activities of billionaires and mere multi-millionaires.
It's easy to plant a story, Larry. You e-mail a reporter and mention you have something. Things take off from there.
Posted by: chris | August 31, 2007 at 06:49 PM
We were brought up in this country to believe the American dream and we believe it...although no one ever told us it had a price. To achieve it one has the opportunity to make a difference in your own life by going to school and achieving your dreams, although it not as easy if the means are not available. Today in a lot of communities the presence of discrimination still exist. For those that have less and the different social classes their communist use this to their advantage and cause dysfunction in the community by injecting envy and jealousy. They believe that by over throwing the current government is the only way for equality, they are brain washed into believing that we are all going to be equal when in reality the government will only get richer. They feed on the uneducated mind. Go to school and make your American dream a reality. You only get as far as you plan your life. Even if there a lot of rocks a long the way. Plan for it and make it a reality.
Posted by: suham | September 01, 2007 at 05:12 AM
"Aren't [CEOs] paid outrageous salaries because someone has decided they're especially talented and unusual?"
Yeah, someone on the board who's also CEO of a company whose board our own CEO sits on. It's called "interlocking boards of directors." Lots of hands mutually washing lots of others.
It's even gotten to where CEOs get paid hundreds of millions to go away after they've fucked up their companies:
http://ehrenreich.blogs.com/barbaras_blog/2007/01/home_depots_ceo.html
We've gotten way beyond talent, hard work and good luck here.
Posted by: Chickensh*tEagle | September 01, 2007 at 05:16 AM
The Eagle has it right. No longer are hardwork and bright ideas encouraged and rewarded. Corporate America has become one big fraternity with the members making sure they each get an unusually LARGE share of the pie.
Unfortuantely, this frat house mentality runs rampant through our culture to the point where the slogan "He who dies with the most toys wins" has become a mission statement.
And, don't believe the BS that CEOs and other executives are "enhancing shareholder value." The only shareholders they care about are themselves.
Posted by: Solo | September 01, 2007 at 06:17 AM
chickeshit eagle writes:
"It's even gotten to where CEOs get paid hundreds of millions to go away after they've fucked up their companies:"
Try naming ONE highly paid CEO who "fucked up his company".
I suppose you'll start with the ridiculous example given by Barbara, namely, Home Depot.
However, because you have a fact-free mind, let me fill you in. Home Depot CEO Nardelli increased net income at HD by 160% during his years heading the company.
Is a 160%-earnings-increase your idea of fucking up a company? It must be since you claim that's what happened.
As for his severance agreement, well, the terms of the agreement were established -- by contract -- BEFORE he accepted the Home Depot job.
Meanwhile, the stock of Home Depot did not rise despite the huge earnings increase. But the price of the stock is not within the control of a CEO.
You wrote:
"We've gotten way beyond talent, hard work and good luck here."
Really? How about a little evidence to support your brainless claim?
Posted by: chris | September 01, 2007 at 06:45 AM
Sorry about the unattributed quote re the dogs-in-private-jet. This had to be off the record so as not to jeopardize my friend's consulting job.
Also, Sarah Anderson at IPS poins out that, in my eagerness to defend CEOs, I understated the ratio of their compensation to the average worker's earnings. It's 364:1, not 362:1.
Posted by: Barbara E | September 01, 2007 at 06:53 AM
chris: '... Home Depot CEO Nardelli increased net income at HD by 160% during his years heading the company. ...'
I think you mean HD increased net income by 160% while Nardelli was heading the company. We don't know that that was Nardelli's doing -- there was at the time a real estate bubble producing a lot of funny money for homeowners who then spent some of the money at HD, apparently. HD's Board didn't seem to think Nardelli was very good; they got rid of him even though it cost them many millions to do so. He was said to be poorly suited for running a retail company. Now he's running Chrysler -- there must be another story in that. In any case, the fact is, we don't really know exactly what Nardelli's share of HD's production was -- the causes of and influences on production are too many to count and too complex to calculate. We can only guess. HD's board guessed he was a drag.
The "market failure" here is in regard to whether the market for CEO labor is pricing their talents correctly. In theory, competition in a free market should tend to depress the rewards of higher management. But the talent of higher management is precisely that of manipulating other people in ways conducive to one's own benefit and not necessarily in the interests of those manipulated. The very talent which the market is supposed to judge is a talent for neutralizing that judgement.
Agreed, however, that the reason CEOs and other high-management types can do this is, as Dr. Steph says, "everyone wants to be rich are we're sold this 'dream' every day...." Just as the con man works on the mark's greed, so the overpaid CEO (and celebrity) works on people's desire to be rich and famous if only vicariously. They're paying people to be rich and powerful for them, at the expense of their own lives and interests. I guess that's what they want to do.
Posted by: Anarcissie | September 01, 2007 at 09:17 AM
A lot of us went to college and worked hard, and our labor did create wealth and opportunity. Not for us, but for the shareholders and CEOs of the corporations we worked for. What we got was layoffs and disappearing pensions.
Posted by: buena | September 01, 2007 at 10:50 AM
I pity the CEO's, too. One line really hit me hard. The line about the CEO's social prohibition against enjoying a $12 bottle of Chardonnay nearly wrung tears from me. Next someone is going to tell me that billionaires never stop by small local bodegas and buy a mango juice and a bag of chicharrones and munch them on the way to the park, where they can throw the crumbs to the pigeons. Probably someone is going to go further and inform me that these billionaires -- purely due to peer pressure -- have never played five-on-five soccer in the field behind the warehouse, with a shoe and a bottle as one goal and two shirts on sticks as the other goal.
Oh, I just had a dreadful thought. I bet those billionaires have never gone down to the animal shelter and picked out the friendliest mutt in the bunch and taken it home and loved it for years and years, and wept for days when it died. All because of the fear of the stares and whispers of their billionaire friends.
I thought teens suffered devastating damage from peer pressure. I had no idea the CEO's and billionaires and other assorted rich people didn't have enough money to escape it. I thought money was supposed to create possibilities. Apparently all it does is land you with a crowd of people who don't care about real happiness or finding joy where you look for it, but rather who look only at price tags and labels.
I do feel sorry for those rich people.
Posted by: Andrea | September 01, 2007 at 11:51 AM
Apart from griping about the distribution of wealth and income--and therefore, power, as well--what can anybody do about it?
Posted by: Jon Koppenhoefer | September 01, 2007 at 12:19 PM
Jon, it's time for a nonviolent revolution. I don't know how to do it, but I'd like to be part of it.
Posted by: buena | September 01, 2007 at 03:46 PM
buena, you wrote:
"A lot of us went to college and worked hard, and our labor did create wealth and opportunity. Not for us, but for the shareholders and CEOs of the corporations we worked for."
Shareholders. Yes. Millions and millions of them, and you are probably among them, even though you don't know it.
You wrote:
"What we got was layoffs and disappearing pensions."
There have always been layoffs and bankruptcies. But pensions are a different matter.
Name a coporate pension plan that disappeared.
Meanwhile, in a previous sentence you claimed that your hard work created wealth for shareholders. Is it news to you that pension plans are huge buyers of stock? If wealth has been made for shareholders, then pension plans have captured the benefit. But you would rather contradict your own statements in a cheap attempt to make an untrue point.
You, and many others jabbering away on this site need to learn some economics and finance before making your claims. Most of your ideas fall into the absurd category.
Posted by: chris | September 01, 2007 at 04:38 PM
Anarcissie, you wrote:
"I think you mean HD increased net income by 160% while Nardelli was heading the company."
No. I meant exactly what I wrote. His guidance and the plans he put into action -- you can check company history to see what he did -- led to a 160% increase in earnings.
Another CEO might have implemented plans leading to an earnings increase of 300%, and other CEO might have taken a path to a decrease in earnings. But, there is no doubt that CEOs are hired to make changes. They are not hired to babysit the company.
You claimed:
"We don't know that that was Nardelli's doing -- "
Stock analysts don't agree with you.
You wrote:
"...there was at the time a real estate bubble producing a lot of funny money for homeowners who then spent some of the money at HD, apparently."
Apparently Nardelli was aware of this growing trend of home buying and the likelihood of home repair and remodelling. He positioned HD to capture a big share of it. You seem to think corporate planning is blind luck. It isn't.
In fact, you are making the point that corporations don't need leaders because the CEOs don't improve anything. In your view they only negotiate huge severance packages, then sit around till they get fired. Ridiculous.
You wrote:
"HD's Board didn't seem to think Nardelli was very good; they got rid of him even though it cost them many millions to do so."
Nardelli was criticized because HD stock did not rise during his tenure. However, he became CEO at the time the stock market was setting new lofty records just before the dot.com bust. Thus HD stock was trading at levels that anticipated greater gains than Nardelli delivered. But no one can fault a CEO who increases earnings 160% in 5 years.
You wrote:
"He was said to be poorly suited for running a retail company."
He arrived at HD from GE. He was hired to produce results, not win a popularity contest. However, the issue raised by the board focused on his relationship with Wall Street.
He never gave stock analysts much of his time. He was busy running the company, rather than spending time chatting up the equity analysts from all the big Wall Street firms. For that reason alone, you should like him. He believed the stock would rise if he delivered earnings. He delivered. The stock underperformed.
But, as I mentioned, the stock -- and the stock market -- was trading at high levels when Nardelli arrived. The unreasonable expectations of the stock market before his arrival are not his doing. He delivered.
You wrote:
"Now he's running Chrysler -- there must be another story in that."
Very simple. He delivered excellent operating results at GE AND HD. He was hired by Cerberus -- the hedge fund that now owns Chrysler to reprise his role. If he can do for Chrysler what he did for GE and HD, he is worth big big bucks.
But I guarantee you that if the auto union workers refuse to renegotiate their contracts, Chrysler may voluntarily enter bankruptcy. While you may think that's bad, it isn't. And Ron Gettleinger, head of the United Autoworkers Union, knows he and Nardelli may enter the fight that remakes the entire labor segment of the US car industry. And Gettlefinger knows he's got only half a leg to stand on.
Daimler bought Chrysler for about $36 billion in 1999. Daimler sold Chrysler to Cerberus for about $1 billion net. The public number was higher, but the net figure was about a billion. In other words, Chrysler ain't worth much except to the people who work there.
Posted by: chris | September 01, 2007 at 05:03 PM
Barbara writes:
"Sorry about the unattributed quote re the dogs-in-private-jet. This had to be off the record so as not to jeopardize my friend's consulting job."
In other words, the story is still phony.
No one's job is jeopardized by a gossip story appearing in the press.
First, these mythical billionaires are flying in jets capable of transcontinental flights. Hence, each jet has a pilot and a co-pilot. Since these mythical people like to pamper themselves, there is at least one flight attendant on board.
They all know about the flights and the dog passengers. Then there is the fact that these mythical people are passing through customs. Many more airport employees see them and their dogs. Then there are the limo drivers who bring them to the airport in London and greet them in LA.
The list of people who would know the names of an indulgent billionaire couple is very long, nothing prevents any of them from dropping this entertaining tidbit into the hands of a gossip columnist.
Meanwhile, according to Forbes, LA is home to 42 billionaires and London is home to about 24. Their names are not secrets and neither are their indulgences.
I'm not sure if Madonna is a billionairess, but she and her husband zip between London and LA. Though I think a story about her would include some mention of her children.
Thus, the mystery billionaire couple may well be a childless duo with dog fever who have residences in both cities. There is a Russian billionaire and his wife who seem to fit that description.
In any case, if this billionaire couple truly exists -- and I doubt it -- revealing their names will have zero effect on anyone's job.
But clamming up is strong evidence that Barbara Ehrenreich is afraid to print a true statement.
Posted by: chris | September 01, 2007 at 05:15 PM
Jon Koppenhoefer: 'Apart from griping about the distribution of wealth and income--and therefore, power, as well--what can anybody do about it?'
The rich are rich and the powerful are powerful only because we give them wealth and power. Maybe they have entertainment value.
Posted by: Anarcissie | September 01, 2007 at 05:47 PM
If I had billions I'd definitely have a large jet to fly my dogs around, just so I could say I had done it.
"There I was, halfway up Mount Everest with the Dalai Lama, when I realized I had left my dogs at the house in Cannes playing seven-card stud, one-eyed jacks wild, with Brad Pitt, Steve Jobs, and Paris Hilton. Of course I sent the plane for them immediately.... There's no telling what those card sharps would have done to get their diamond dog-collars."
Posted by: Anarcissie | September 01, 2007 at 05:54 PM
There is one possible hole in the story: The UK doesn't allow foreign dogs in without them being in quarantine for at least six months because there is no rabies or distemper over there; one advantage to being on an island. Not even a billionaire can circumvent that.
Posted by: Chris S. | September 01, 2007 at 06:25 PM
Loved the bit at the end about how the friends of the ultra-rich would reject a $12 bottle of wine. Real friends? Naaah....
Posted by: paul merrill | September 02, 2007 at 05:16 AM
"As for his severance agreement, well, the terms of the agreement were established -- by contract -- BEFORE he accepted the Home Depot job."
Which means...? Prenegotiated or not, he STILL got paid $200 million to GO AWAY.
More later.
Posted by: Chickensh*tEagle | September 02, 2007 at 06:01 AM
Blog Etiquette Expert Chris blabbers:
"You, and many others jabbering away on this site need to learn some economics and finance before making your claims.."
I don't recall seeing an invitation from the host asking you for your flippant, arrogant rude replies.
Sport, this is not your blog. We know you have some major inadequacies as a person and your "participation" here is your way of justifying a most likely miserable existence. Do us all a favor and crawl back under your rock. Can't you find a coffee shop to hang out in and hold court, or are you banned from pretty much all of then in NYC ?
I think a medication switch might help you too.Take the nasty edge away.
Oh and the weather in the Hamptons this weekend is really nice. Flying out from JFK Tuesday to Barcelona. Have time to meet me for a coffee ?
Posted by: Larry In Lethbribge | September 02, 2007 at 08:45 AM
$100,000 death benefit? Yeah. But try adding in the $400,000 life insurance policy that would also be cashed in for each servicemember who died.
Posted by: akinoluna | September 02, 2007 at 10:05 AM
I hadn't thought about your comparison of being a general and a ceo and the $13 billion figure. If money has its own artifical intelligence and uses human mammals organized in corporate tribes as tools to build itself larger numbers all in one place, its succeeding. They do call it capitalism. As the US becomes more crowded the more aggressive among us will find ways to gather a bigger share of the available moneys. They will use any method from crime to a police state which are really two poles of the same power thing. I think the reason moral arguments no longer hold any sway is that we are in a new era in which money once again dominates unchecked by our supposedly democratic institutions. Perhaps the growth of the huge power of the media financed by the very same money'd interests has changed the balance into a dangerous asymmetry. Its interesting for if money is the root of all evil and manifests in man, well maybe it just is. The media has people so well programmed at this point the very mention of the word liberal makes any discussion moot. You can hear that all day on television talk shows and we all know who their advertisers are. The moral concept is gone here. Even our most respected bond rating agencies gave sub-prime CDO packages AAA bond ratings. The level of corruption is so overwhelming in our culture at this time it bogles the mind. I don't think a moral argument can sway a people so under this yoke.
Posted by: Brian Stewart | September 02, 2007 at 10:29 AM
Poor people suck and deserve to be down trodden.
They are always complaining instead of working their guts out to get ahead. Their only function on the planet is to produce more cheap labor for corporations to exploit. So what if they cannot afford health care. The sooner they die after producing more workers the better.
Let them eat cake.
Posted by: Kendo Nagasaki | September 02, 2007 at 12:04 PM
Quick note: CEOs STILL *taste like chicken*!
Remember that on those cold, dark nights.
HAPPY MOTORING!
Posted by: M. Douglas Wray | September 02, 2007 at 12:58 PM
Perhaps cannibalism is the answer. Have you seen the price of chicken lately?
Posted by: buena | September 02, 2007 at 01:36 PM
"The problem is not that there are rich and poor. The problem is that people are not raised to be content with their station in life but want to be equal to their betters."
Their "betters"? The problem is that people continue to define the value of a person by how much money they make. Newsflash - being stinking rich doesn't make someone a decent human being or make them better than someone else.
Posted by: Deconstructionist | September 02, 2007 at 06:46 PM
Hallo, we are trying to contact Barbara Ehrenreich to invite her in Belgium (Brussels) for a conference to be held in our university.
Do you know where or how we can send her a letter?
Posted by: LEBEER Guy | September 03, 2007 at 06:28 AM
Poor people do suck. How dare they clutter up this perfect world? Maybe there ought to be a law against them.
Posted by: buena | September 03, 2007 at 04:50 PM
I know, Buena!!
Working people aren't much better ... I mean, they have the audacity to expect decent public education, intact bridges, a say in nat'l elections, and such ... all when they pay such a disproportionately small amount of the tax base. Really, don't they realize how lucky they are to have jobs?
Posted by: lc2 | September 03, 2007 at 05:27 PM
No, they obviously don't. I mean, how lucky can you be to work as a secretary or on the assembly line? What else do they want?
Posted by: buena | September 03, 2007 at 10:31 PM
Hi I enjoyed reading your blog and would like to invite your readers to pop by and visit us here at 'An Unrepentant Communist', an increasingly popular Left blog from Ireland
http://unrepentantcommunist.blogspot.com/
I hope you will be able to link our blog to yours.
Greetings to all progressives reading this from County Kerry in Ireland!
Gabriel
Posted by: charlie woods | September 04, 2007 at 05:37 AM
Monica: "The problem is not that there are rich and poor. The problem is that people are not raised to be content with their station in life but want to be equal to their betters."
Deconstructionist: 'Their "betters"? The problem is that people continue to define the value of a person by how much money they make. Newsflash - being stinking rich doesn't make someone a decent human being or make them better than someone else.'
Don't get too excited. "Monica" is a troll or a satirist -- maybe both.
Posted by: Anarcissie | September 04, 2007 at 08:09 AM
Chris, check out the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation's website at http://www.pbgc.gov . United Airlines turned their pension plan over to them when they filed for bankruptcy. Note that there are limits on what you can be paid once PGBC has the plan, and it's usually a lot less than what one was promised, even under the two-tiering of benefits that became common with the airlines under deregulation.
Other companies are replacing their pension plans with "cash balance" plans, which replace the life annuity with the cash value of what you have earned to date, and that's what you get, and earn no future pension benefits paid for by the company no matter how long you continue to work for them. You might be able to contribute to a 401(k) plan without a company match.
You might argue that reduction of benefits isn't the same as cancelling a pension plan, but people make a good-faith assumption that they will get what they were promised at retirement.
Posted by: paperpusher666 | September 04, 2007 at 09:26 AM
I think Monica is trying to overcome the toxicity she was exposed to while living in the wonderful countryside of Romania.
And Kendo Nagasaki's comment, well that was a real chuckler. You mentally unstable too?
Posted by: Larry in Lethbridge | September 04, 2007 at 11:05 AM
Larry, but those Romanians REALLY know how to celebrate Christmas, executing their leaders, Nikolai and Elena Ceaucescu, by firing squad on Christmas Day 1989.
Birth control was banned under the Ceaucescus as well.
Posted by: paperpusher666 | September 04, 2007 at 01:37 PM
The Qwest employees have gotten pennies on the dollar for their pensions, while Nacchio waits to go to jail after bilking the company for hundreds of millions.
Posted by: buena | September 04, 2007 at 01:53 PM
buena, you wrote:
"The Qwest employees have gotten pennies on the dollar for their pensions, while Nacchio waits to go to jail after bilking the company for hundreds of millions."
buena, do these fictions come to you while you're in the bath or after you stick your finger in an electrical socket?
Nacchio was tried and convicted of Insider Trading of stock.
Insider Trading has no connection to "bilking" a company. The charge reflects trading stock when you possess secret "insider" knowledge of what's ahead for a company and use that information to profit in the stock market.
You claim Qwest pension plans are paying recipients "pennies on the dollar."
Your claim is total nonsense. You really should ask yourself why you accept as much nonsense as you do.
Posted by: chris | September 04, 2007 at 05:41 PM
paperpusher666, you wrote:
"Chris, check out the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation's website at http://www.pbgc.gov ."
I'm familiar with the PBGC.
You wrote:
"...companies are replacing their pension plans with "cash balance" plans, which replace the life annuity with the cash value of what you have earned to date, and that's what you get, and earn no future pension benefits paid for by the company no matter how long you continue to work for them. You might be able to contribute to a 401(k) plan without a company match."
Defined Benefit Pension Plans are now part of history. They are dinosaurs. The replacement plans are better.
You wrote:
"You might argue that reduction of benefits isn't the same as cancelling a pension plan, but people make a good-faith assumption that they will get what they were promised at retirement."
My statement that initiated this exchange was:
"Name a coporate pension plan that disappeared."
buena cannot name a pension plan that has disappeared because buena knows nothing about pensions or finance.
Posted by: chris | September 04, 2007 at 05:53 PM
It's been a while since I posted but all of you should know: The only way to have a productive conversation on this board is to act as though Monica and Chris don't exist. Why Barbara hasn't found a way to ban them by now is simply beyond me. They must have an IP point that she can choke beyond their squeezing past. But Chris and Monica simply sabotage every discussion here and that is truly disheartening.
Monica has been posting idiocy since here first post here.
*****
"The problem is not that there are rich and poor. The problem is that people are not raised to be content with their station in life but want to be equal to their betters."
*****
I knew she had written that tripe before I even scrolled down to read her name. I didn't bother reading the rest of her post.
There is no use arguing with Monica and Chris, especially Chris. They are to be ignored, pitied and treated as trolls. Please don't feed them.
Posted by: ThatDeborahGirl | September 05, 2007 at 04:10 AM
Oh, more proof that Monica is an idiot:
*****
Rest assured: my ancestors were "middle-class" (priests, teachers, scholars, for example)
*****
Monica, if you had ever picked up a book (even some decent period fiction), you would know that only in recent modern times have priests, teachers and scholars been considered "middle class".
In the times that you refer to all of these people were regarded as "less than servants" because intellectual and spiritual pursuits were not seen as producing "real labor".
But as I have said, there is no use arguing with Monica and Chris, but I couldn't help but point out that if there are Serfs and Masters, Monica would clearly be a SERF.
Posted by: ThatDeborahGirl | September 05, 2007 at 04:26 AM
ThatDeborahGirl wrote:
"There is no use arguing with Monica and Chris, especially Chris."
Deborah, people like you -- perpetual victims -- believe there is only one reality -- yours.
Because you gather your world-view by peering through a straw, you cannot understand Monica. I'm not going to explain Monica to you, but I will tell that your insight into Monica is zero.
Meanwhile, go study some economics and finance. The knowledge will help you.
You would also help yourself by forgoing your Nation-of-Islam sensibilities. The NOI is a corrosive organization that promotes unadulterated hate for whites and has accomplished nothing of value for blacks.
Posted by: chris | September 05, 2007 at 06:46 AM
As for the ultra-rich, we can't all be billionaires. If we were, I believe that inflation would go through the roof. That said, I do wish that the country's wealth (and a large share of the world's wealth) were more evenly distributed.
No one likes taxes, not even me, but given the choice between the two, I hate not being able to qualify for health insurance because of my disability more than I hate taxes. At least taxes pay for roads and schools (not to mention the war in Iraq. I personally wrote "NOT TO BE USED FOR WAR" in the Memo section of my income tax check this year. Guess that makes me a traitor. When's my date with the lethal injection needle?)
Would I pay more taxes to see more U.S. people have a bigger share of the pie? You bet I would, because what kind of life is living one medical emergency away from filing bankruptcy?
That's my personal choice. I still don't LIKE taxes, but I'd be willing to make this extra sacrifice.
Posted by: Tysyacha | September 05, 2007 at 07:17 AM
I don't care if you think that something like being a priest or a teacher was not even considered middle-class, nor was that incompatible with being from a "better" family (or having such ancestors but having resorted lately to such means to make a living). The fact is that such people were not "shit shovelers". Mind you, that notion is relative. Whether they actually had to clean anything dirty or not, even some servants of the upper class were, maybe not socially, but actually privileged. How many of you get paid just to sit around in case your boss calls you and then bring a glass of water or something? It's all in how you see it.
Posted by: Monica | September 05, 2007 at 07:33 AM
Monica,
You are a most brilliant satirist! I look forward to your posts, because they present feudal ideas in a modern light in a way that no one since perhaps Orwell or Swift has done. Bravo!
If you would not make me do any backbreaking or physically taxing manual labor (laundry isn't taxing, vacuuming is, for me), I'd be your servant. Would you help me jump through the hoops of the health-care system and get around the "pre-existing conditions" insurance companies impose?
Posted by: Tysyacha | September 05, 2007 at 07:45 AM
Ah Chris, so nice to be in Spain, sipping some nice Rioja and eating delectible little morsels. Man, I wish we could get me some tapas in Alberta. Getting tired of all that smoked trout and buffalo jerky.
I saw your last profound comment directed at Deborah.
Little man, we know you are a flaming racist and bigot, but are you also sexist ?
I think I know why. "Men" who act up as you do, simply don't get "any". Pure and simple. This lack of activity makes you a very jaded and bitter person.
Perhaps a quick bus ride to Montreal (I know you like bus travel) and you and Monica can discuss political ideologies. Maybe it will lead to you both starting your own blog.Maybe we can start harrassing you at your new site. Can you legally travel to Canada Chris ?
Hey maybe you two can a get a wax together? Watch out for the Al-Qaeda pockets in Montreal, Mr Bigot.
Posted by: Larry in Barcelona | September 05, 2007 at 07:47 AM
Monica,
You are a most brilliant satirist! I look forward to your posts, because they present feudal ideas in a modern light in a way that no one since perhaps Orwell or Swift has done. Bravo!
If you would not make me do any backbreaking or physically taxing manual labor (laundry isn't taxing, vacuuming is, for me), I'd be your servant. Would you help me jump through the hoops of the health-care system and get around the "pre-existing conditions" insurance companies impose?
Posted by: Tysyacha | September 05, 2007 at 08:10 AM
Sorry for the double post!
Posted by: Tysyacha | September 05, 2007 at 08:17 AM
Tysyacha, you wrote:
"As for the ultra-rich, we can't all be billionaires. If we were, I believe that inflation would go through the roof."
You are yet another person in need of a financial education.
You wrote:
"That said, I do wish that the country's wealth (and a large share of the world's wealth) were more evenly distributed."
In other words, you want to see dictators or communist regimes control as much of the world as possible. That's great. Just what the world needs. You, a fan of totalitarianism.
You will find SOME support for such craziness. But not one of the former residents of the Soviet Union who now live in Brooklyn have expressed that desire to me.
You wrote:
"Would I pay more taxes to see more U.S. people have a bigger share of the pie? You bet I would, because what kind of life is living one medical emergency away from filing bankruptcy?"
First, nothing stops you from sending extra money to the IRS every year. There are people like you who actually send amounts exceeding their tax bills.
Second, since you think of yourself as a humanitarian, you can donate to the charity of your choice. That way, you can be assured that your contribution is going where you'd like it to go. No deductions for military expenditures or other programs you do not support.
In fact, if you were to offer to pay the medical bills of someone in need, you should have no trouble identifying qualified recipients.
Posted by: chris | September 05, 2007 at 09:45 AM
I realize that I can't be a supporter of totalitarianism and a humanitarian at the same time, since these philosophies are complete polar opposites. Thus, I'll retract what I said about wanting the world's wealth being more evenly distributed. I know that doing so involves controlling the economy to a greater measure, and planned economies, as evidenced by the former USSR, Cuba, and China, suck.
What about all of us being billionaires? Why wouldn't inflation skyrocket due to every one of us having that much money? I'm ignorant, yes, but I also want to learn as much as I can about the things of which I'm ignorant. Would you please explain the error of my reasoning on inflation?
P.S. By any chance, are you an Objectivist, or familiar with the philosophy of Objectivism?
Posted by: Tysyacha | September 05, 2007 at 10:34 AM
Tysyacha, consider how prices have gone up since we went off the gold standard. Going back 2000 years, you were able buy a pretty good men's suit (toga, fursuit, whatever) for an ounce of gold at all points in time. Gold is a store of value, where fiat currency such as the dollars that you carry in your wallet are backed only by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. When the Model T came out, it cost only a couple of hundred dollars. Compare that to car prices today, even adjusting for safety features and improved performance.
Economics is the study of how we use scarce resources. If money is not scarce, why wouldn't you expect prices to go up? You have an expanding population and an expanding supply of money competing for a relatively fixed amount of goods.
Posted by: paperpusher666 | September 05, 2007 at 11:02 AM
Tysyacha- "Would you please explain the error of my reasoning on inflation?"
Saying that to Chris was not smart. Not smart at all.
Posted by: Justin K. | September 05, 2007 at 11:06 AM
Tysyacha, you wrote:
"I realize that I can't be a supporter of totalitarianism and a humanitarian at the same time, since these philosophies are complete polar opposites."
Frankly, many people believe the two impulses can exist simultaneously in the same person. In fact, many who post here, if they examined their beliefs, would agree, because it is what they feel.
You asked:
"What about all of us being billionaires? Why wouldn't inflation skyrocket due to every one of us having that much money?"
What's the difference between every person on Earth having $100 or every peson having $1 billion?
Answer: Nothing.
You expressed the same communistic belief of everyone having equal amounts of wealth. The number itself does not matter.
You wrote:
"I also want to learn as much as I can about the things of which I'm ignorant."
You can easily obtain basic knowledge of economics from the internet. Or you can buy an economics book. You will likely find a used economics book in a thrift store for $1. The best buck you will ever spend.
Milton Friedman is the economist you should study.
You asked:
"Would you please explain the error of my reasoning on inflation?"
Inflation is merely the general price increases for goods and services over time.
A low rate of inflation is good. A high rate is bad.
On the other hand, a general decrease in the prices of goods and services is important too.
The US and other parts of the world experienced deflation during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Bad time for many.
Your concern about inflation seems to focus on hyper-inflation, like that seen in Germany during the 1920s, in various states in South America over the last few decades and in Africa.
Zimbabwe is now experiencing hyper-inflation. The moron dictator running the country upset the economy by seizing the farmland run by whites. He then gave the land to his idiot black cronies, who have mismanaged the farms to the point where they now produce nothing.
The country has no cash for imports. Thus, the supply of goods has fallen drastically. When goods are scarce, sellers raise prices. But the moron dictator put price caps on goods whose prices were soaring. Now there is no cash to buy goods to be sold in Zimbabwe, which means supplies of basic stuff like food are running short. The price caps will cause starvation in that country.
This is why dictators should be removed and replaced with something that resembles democracy. These idiots ruin their countries every time they obtain power.
You asked:
"P.S. By any chance, are you an Objectivist, or familiar with the philosophy of Objectivism?"
I have probably read more than half of Ayn Rand's work. I like the philosophy. But her fiction is a little tedious. The non-fiction is better.
Posted by: chris | September 05, 2007 at 11:07 AM
paperpusher666,
Thank you for that clear and rational explanation. I had momentarily forgotten that our money is not really "money" in the way that gold was for the past 2000 years. Our money is only valuable because our government says it is.
I suspect that if foreign countries decided that our dollars weren't worth the paper they were printed on or the copper in the wires that facilitated electronic currency transfers, then our economy would collapse.
Right?
Posted by: Tysyacha | September 05, 2007 at 11:09 AM
chris,
By the way, why does the U.S., in many cases, throw its support behind brutal dictators and totalitarian regimes if it professes to love freedom and is anti-totalitarian?
Posted by: Tysyacha | September 05, 2007 at 11:16 AM
Tysyacha, you asked:
"By the way, why does the U.S., in many cases, throw its support behind brutal dictators and totalitarian regimes if it professes to love freedom and is anti-totalitarian?"
The US is always faced with the problem of wrestling with the lesser of two evils.
The US does not back nasty regimes to support them per se. We back nasty regimes with the expectation they will achieve something of value to the US.
Like in Afghanistan. We hired osama bin laden to fight the Soviets. He did, and his efforts broke the back of the Soviet Union. In the end, the US defeated the Soviet Union without ever engaging in a direct confrontation.
A mad muslim riding horses in the mountains of Afghanistan fought against the demoralized Soviets and allowed the US to avoid a possible nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
I'd say that was an act of genius. Unfortunately, the US failed to kill bin laden after his work for us was done.
Posted by: chris | September 05, 2007 at 11:27 AM
I'm sure that we (the U.S.) suspected that Osama bin Laden would screw us over in the course of time, once the Soviet Union was defeated. If we suspected this, then why didn't we kill him? We could have brought him to trial, or more fittingly, let the Afghanis take him to trial, for his murders and other crimes. Why were we so short-sighted? Did bin Laden "get away" from us?
Posted by: Tysyacha | September 05, 2007 at 11:32 AM
Now i am completely convinced. Rich people are the poorest. But, this is the magic of the unvisible hand, what ever they do, we all benefit from, em, the richness of the ultra-rich.
And we woldn't if the ultra-rich would be poor!
If the ultra-rich would only be rich, they could't afford their lifestyle and our economy completely would implode.
Posted by: Dr. Dean | September 06, 2007 at 07:03 AM
Does anyone else take any comfort in knowing that few to none of these ultra-wealthy types have any survival skills? I'm not even talking about their inability to function in the wake of a catastrophe, just everyday life. They wouldn't last one week on a workaday family's budget .... forgoing Starbucks? No cell phone? No dogwalkers or nannies or drycleaning? I'm not even factoring in how badly they'd chafe at having to suck it up and go along w/the more meaningless rules at regular jobs .... these people would freak at having to live within a budget. Cold comfort maybe ... but some comfort nonetheless. I actually do pity the ultra-rich a little bit.
Posted by: lc2 | September 06, 2007 at 02:04 PM
Chris - you wrote:
"Milton Friedman is the economist you should study."
...and gave yourself away..
Not a creative idea in good ole boy Milty's head. Just the continued coming of the same old, increasingly tired, doctrine of free-market liberalism. You know - the "let them eat cake" kind.
The only thing you seem to contribute to understanding economics and finances is repeating standard dogma so well.
Blah, blah, blah.
As to your previous comments on Nardelli and Home Depot, guess you've never worked for one have you?
Non of that free-market liberalism, trickle-down economics working there, I can assure you.
Having previously been employed by my local HD, here's three things that happened during just two years of Nardelli's rule:
-the starting hourly wage dropped 2, and in some cases 3, dollars - whatever it took to reduce it to minimum wage (after all, minimum wage is all anyone needs, right? Oh, and you better be able to raise a family and save for your retirement on that too!)
-full time employment dropped to only one person per department (after all, nobody needs full time work or benefits do they?)
-the one store in my area mushroomed to 5 within a 10 mile radius. This is SOP for HD. So what happens? While the overall profits for HD climb, the actual individual stores can only nab so much of the pie. This has the beautiful effect of reducing any profit-sharing amount the already reduced-in-number full timers are entitled to in the profit sharing plan.
Now there's some basic, in your face, reality economics that anyone can understand.
Oh yeah, that trickle-down economics of Milty really works well, don't ya think?
Or, wait...isn't is it "rising water floats all boats"?
Or, better yet..."sparrows will get to eat the droppings left by the horse"?
Or, my personal favourite..."just wait, it really will work. Just wait"
All I can say is that if Milty is all you've read, read some more.
And pull your head outta that horse's butt.
-
Posted by: CanadaKat | September 06, 2007 at 09:51 PM
Chris - you wrote:
"A mad muslim riding horses in the mountains of Afghanistan fought against the demoralized Soviets and allowed the US to avoid a possible nuclear war with the Soviet Union."
Please cite your sources proving that the US and the Soviets were anywhere near a nuclear confrontation in Afghanistan.
You wrote:
"The US is always faced with the problem of wrestling with the lesser of two evils."
I don't think I have ever heard such a nice justification of US hypocracy.
Sigh
Posted by: CanadaKat | September 06, 2007 at 11:03 PM
Chris, you opined:
"The US does not back nasty regimes to support them per se. We back nasty regimes with the expectation they will achieve something of value to the US."
Well said. I couldn't agree with you more. Whether the US does or does not take action, anywhere, depends solely on what the US, and only the US, has to gain.
It's why compliant yet brutal countries like Saudi Arabia get not only a free pass in the court of US opinion, but also get great arms deals.
Chris, you wrote:
"A mad muslim riding horses in the mountains of Afghanistan fought against the demoralized Soviets and allowed the US to avoid a possible nuclear war with the Soviet Union."
Please cite your sources proving that the US and the Soviets were anywhere close to a nuclear confrontation in Afghanistan.
Posted by: CanadaKat | September 07, 2007 at 07:17 AM
oops, sorry for the double-post guys & gals! Up all night writing a paper. Personally, I like the second one better...
Posted by: CanadaKat | September 07, 2007 at 07:30 AM
Chris - you sneared:
"In other words, you want to see dictators or communist regimes control as much of the world as possible. That's great. Just what the world needs. You, a fan of totalitarianism."
in response to:
"That said, I do wish that the country's wealth (and a large share of the world's wealth) were more evenly distributed."
Tsk, tsk. Such on/off, up/down, right/wrong, limited thinking. Shame on you - I was hoping for so much more.
To hint, as Tysyacha did, at a need for a more equitable distribution of wealth is not the same thing as supporting Totalitarianism or any form of dictatorship. Not the same thing at all.
Lord, save us all please, from simplistic, binary thinkers.
Where is it written, in the golden doctrine of capitalism, that caring for people is an absolute no-no?
I await enlightenment with baited breath.
Posted by: CanadaKat | September 07, 2007 at 03:02 PM
There is a better, less expensive way:
1) Many high school students have the opportunity to take advanced placement courses while still in high school. In most cases these are very inexpensive, and of course the student is still living at home.
2) The vast majority of Americans are now served by a community college within a reasonable distance of their homes. Their tuition is much, much lower than most four-year institutions, and well within the realm of affordability for most students. Working one's way through those first two years of school is quite feasible at a community college, because the courses are scheduled with the convenience of working students in mind; many courses are offered both during the day and at night. The student can also continue living at home while studying at their community college.
3. Credit by examination is also an inexpensive option for some students. Especially if a student is highly motivated and disciplined, a little time reading a subject is often sufficient preparation to pass the exam.
4. Need I mention that there are also a multitude of correspondence courses available for credit from a wide variety of colleges and universities? There are also televised and online versions of these.
5. Most community colleges have worked out articulation agreements with the public universities in their state, assuring that the courses that their students took will transfer to the four-year institution. Many community colleges and state universities have worked out 2+2 programs, enabling a student to take their first two years at the community college and last two years at a state university.
6. Another option are degree completion programs. These are offered by a number of public and private institutions, but the student will have to shop around to find a good accredited program. Some of these programs will not only accept the coursework that the student did in all of the above options, but will also award credit for "life experience" - which can include extracurricular activities, and even the work the student did to pay their way through school!
With a little bit of research, creativity, determination, and self discipline, it is quite possible to graduate from an accredited institution with a bachelor's degree without being up to one's ears in debt. It does mean, however, that one will probably have to be willing to forgo the four years of party-time. It also means that while one can earn a credential in this manner, that is not necessarilly the same thing as getting an education. Becoming educated is all about learning, and in the final analysis that is something that goes on inside each student's mind. At the very best institutions, talented professors can guide and motivate gifted students to make the most of their intellectual potential. However, most people are not so well-endowed, either intellectually or financially, to be able to take advantage of such wonderful opportunities. The reality is that once one comes down from such rarified intellectual hights, the quality of teaching and learning at most institutions is pretty mediocre at best. Which just goes to emphasize the question: Why pay so much for it? Why not pursue the less expensive alternatives that I have outlined above? If a student that needs to obtain their educational credentials on the cheap really is motivated to learn, we have libraries filled with books, and an internet filled with resources. A little motivation and self-discipline will go a long way in making up whatever is lacking in the quality of teaching one encounters in these low-cost options.
Posted by: WNC Observer | September 07, 2007 at 06:58 PM
There must be a lot of youth
who believe in what they have been told. I remember in the 70's. The advertisers didn't
go for us, our allowance wasn't that great. My schoolmates and I didn't think too hard about glamour. There was Reagan and nuclear war in 20 minutes. Who brought up these kids?
Posted by: Brian Barth | September 07, 2007 at 08:50 PM
WNC observer:
(I think you actually meant to post in the 'fleece u' thread...)
"Many high school students have the opportunity to take advanced placement courses while still in high school."
-in the US, yes, but not in Canada.
"The vast majority of Americans are now served by a community college within a reasonable distance of their homes."
-again, in the US maybe, but only in very large urban areas in Canada. I live in one of the largest cities in the country and we have 2 universities and 3 colleges. I would not be surprised to find that the state of New York, for example, has more universities and colleges than my entire country!
"Credit by examination is also an inexpensive option for some students."
-not allowed, for the most part, in Canada. We're stodgy. The best most can hope for is transfer credit from another similar institution and that can be very hard to get.
"Need I mention that there are also a multitude of correspondence courses available for credit from a wide variety of colleges and universities?"
Again, not here. Canada does have one 'online' university-afiliated with a real brick and mortar one-but with limited options (mostly Master's level). Schools and employers tend to look down on distance/online ed up here - too bad. Again, we're stodgy.
Canada is so far behind the US in this regard.
The same with 'degree completion programs' - we don't have that up here.
I guess my point is that not everyone has the variety of choices that seem to be available in the US.
As to forgoing the partying, you're right - or at least some of it anyway.
But I went back to school in '98 to do another degree and I can tell you that most of the students in my program weren't partying - they were too busy working their full time jobs and trying to get to class when they could (student loans weren't enough to cover their costs).
One thing: most schools worth their weight (at least with respect to accreditation and credibility in the academic and, possibly, the employment arena) would ever grant credit for life experience. The one exception I can think of that retains at least some credibility are a few 'executive' MBA-type programs.
In the States, for example,I don't think that you would be able to find a US regionally accredited school allowing that.
In Canada, this is an absolute no-no.
Not sure how I feel about allowing 'life-experience' to replace academic credits. At first glance, they seem to be not at all the same, except in cases where the education one is pursuing is directly related to their work (as with an MBA perhaps).
You are absolutely right about the quality of teaching at some universities. A PhD is no guarantee that the person can actually teach - way too many of them that I have come across should just have stuck with research. Also, I am very wary of any Prof, PhD or no, who has only worked in the academic setting - this is not the reality for most of the students they are instructing and I can't take them seriously.
Sometimes the 'lower cost' education options have the better instruction - those who actually have worked in the field they are teaching.
Posted by: CanadaKat | September 08, 2007 at 08:40 AM
lc2, you wrote:
"Does anyone else take any comfort in knowing that few to none of these ultra-wealthy types have any survival skills?"
On what have you based this pointless claim?
And what do you mean by this claim?
Are you suggesting the ultra-wealthy would if left alone in the woods for a few days? Or that they would suffer terribly if they were kept from shopping?
You wrote:
"I'm not even talking about their inability to function in the wake of a catastrophe, just everyday life."
Really? I've always thought that Warren Buffett's brilliance, which has enabled him to accumulate a $50 billion fortune, was evidence that he knew better than most people how to organize his day.
You wrote:
"They wouldn't last one week on a workaday family's budget .... forgoing Starbucks?"
Maybe their ability to earn lots of money has taken them past the need to live on tight budgets.
You wrote:
"I'm not even factoring in how badly they'd chafe at having to suck it up and go along w/the more meaningless rules at regular jobs ...."
These people have CREATED their own jobs and done brilliantly. See Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and a growing list of others who have demonstrated the drive, intelligence and foresight to amass fortunes.
You wrote:
"...these people would freak at having to live within a budget. Cold comfort maybe ... but some comfort nonetheless. I actually do pity the ultra-rich a little bit."
Instead of your foolish and phony sense of pity, maybe you should study their lives and understand what they've done and how they've done it.
They are proof that democracy and capitalism combine to offer unbeatable opportunities for anyone.
Admiration is the appropriate feeling Americans should have for these high achievers.
Posted by: chris | September 10, 2007 at 06:28 AM
I admire Bill Gates all the way to the moon and back - especially for that amazingly eye-to-the-bottom- line breakthrough in reducing as much of his company's work force costs as possible by hiring from temp agencies - although he's definitely not alone in this, just joined the bandwagon.
But then, hey, those contract and part-timer temps can just go somewhere else if they don't like it.
I suggest expatriation - heck, if a lot of the good paying jobs are offshored, might as well move offshore too.
It's patriotic as well - you wouldn't be contributing to that - how many billions of dollars now? - trade deficit by staying at home and consuming more goods than the homeland currently makes herself.
'course, if you go and do a dumb thing like start up a business that imports to the homeland well, that might cancel out your contribution to any trade deficit rebalancing.
But you might just make tons of money and, hey, that is what capitalism is all about, no?
;-)
Posted by: CanadaKat | September 10, 2007 at 05:59 PM
Chris-you wrote:
"They are proof that democracy and capitalism combine to offer unbeatable opportunities for anyone."
Yes, we've all been fed the phrase "democracy and capitalism" repeatedly, ad nauseum, hand-in-hand, as standard dogma for years now. They are almost always said together in the same sentence as if they are they same thing.
And, although capitalism may help democracy to thrive (at least in the mind of theorists), we know that captitalism does not need democracy - think, China.
Just curious: given that we (Canada, US) have been seeing an erosion of the middle class for sometime now, what would be your prediction for the health of democracy?
I mean, it is standard - at least in the realms of political science and international relations - to insist that one of the necessary foundations for the establishment and health of a democracy (anywhere) is a productive, stable middle class - also necessary to capitalism, needing enough people who earn enough to turn around and consume enough.
Posted by: CanadaKat | September 10, 2007 at 06:10 PM
CanadaKat, you wrote:
"And, although capitalism may help democracy to thrive (at least in the mind of theorists), we know that captitalism does not need democracy - think, China."
China is proof that the capitalistic impulse is more powerful than the communistic drive. If communism were still the state religion of China, you would not see what you see in China today.
China's evolution will lead to a slow steady move away from communism. It's already happened. It is ongoing, and unless China wants to collapse upon itself, the country will continue to move in the direction it is headed, which is toward more and more freedom and the spread of democratic sensibilities.
The desire to seek the safety of the state is eroding and will continue to erode. Meanwhile, the central government will continue to lose its power to control an increasingly complex economy that is a key player in the globalization of world markets.
In short, capitalism will kill the last of the communist spirit in China. It's obvious.
Cuba will provide the next laboratory in which to witness the conversion. Fidel's brother has been to China and he liked what he saw. He knows Fidel's marxist experiment is a total failure and he will -- when he has full power -- refashion Cuba into a state based on the China model. Then he will begin to lose control of the economy as it races ahead at revolutionary speed.
China, meanwhile, is still small potatoes, given its population of well over a billion people. However, now that the consumer impulse has been unleased in China, there is no going back. Moreover, Americans who believe too many US jobs are heading to China should welcome and desire a free and democratic, capitalistic China. Such a country will be a place of higher wages, and those higher wages will level the playing field for global competitors. Thus, as wages rise in China, fewer jobs will leave the US.
You asked:
"...given that we have been seeing an erosion of the middle class for sometime now, what would be your prediction for the health of democracy?"
Better than ever. Complaining about the economy is at an all-time high. But the middle class is alive and well. I suppose the fact that many new constituents have entered the middle class rankles those see these people as arrivistes.
The demographics of the middle class may show signs of change, but it is bigger than ever. In Brooklyn, NY many of the new members of the middle class are Russian immigrants, or immigrants from other former Soviet states. They are learning about capitalism and democracy, and embracing both. Where's the problem?
Asians too. Their numbers are growing along with their economic power.
The people most likely in the wrong place at the wrong time are members of unions such as the United Auto Workers. Further erosion of these unions will occur. Membership will continue to fall, and new contracts will offer lower wages and benefits.
The alternative is the liquidation of GM and Ford, which will occur to the benefit of Toyota.
There are always dislocations and points of pain in a capitalistic democracy. As tough as that may be for some, it's far better than the usual outcome for communist states, which simply crash in the end -- unless, like China, they begin the conversion to capitalism.
Posted by: chris | September 11, 2007 at 05:20 AM
Why is it that CEOs in other countries aren't paid as outrageously and for whatever reason, their companies produce decent products? (BMW comes to mind as do some of the Japanese brands)...
On my own blog, we had a Wal-Mart post, and I mentioned Barbara's book. You should see some of the responses justifying Wal-Mart's practices.
Posted by: adriana | September 11, 2007 at 09:52 PM
Ah, yes, both China and Cuba provide interesting debate on what will happen.
Capitalism surely prefers a dictatorship - where wages are kept low and environmental, labour (union)regulations, etc., are likely to be minimal if not non-existent.
It's why much of offshored manufacturing, for example, prefers to establish itself in less or non-democratic areas.
From a business perspective, this makes perfect sense. The drive is always to maximize profit while having the same, or preferably less, costs.
Any business can only ever have it's eye glued to the bottom line - it is what it is designed to do. We can, and should, expect nothing different.
Democracy is far too messy designed, as it is, to be participatory, and as Chris pointed out, wages tend to be higher in democracies. Not to mention all the demands for rights, etc. that spring up in democratic societies.
At the most basic of levels, the principles of democracy and captitalism clash: one based on equal distribution of power (supposedly) and the other based on top-down power.
Posted by: CanadaKat | September 11, 2007 at 10:11 PM
CanadaKat wrote:
"Ah, yes, both China and Cuba provide interesting debate on what will happen."
China will evolve toward further free-market capitalism and Cuba will follow China.
If the world is lucky, both will begin to look like the US in a few decades.
Posted by: chris | September 12, 2007 at 01:51 PM
"If the world is lucky, both will begin to look like the US in a few decades."
Only if they wish to live and function in a military state.
Posted by: CanadaKat | September 12, 2007 at 07:47 PM
hmmm.....
Posted by: Justin K. | September 13, 2007 at 11:16 AM
CanadaKat writes: Capitalism surely prefers a dictatorship - where wages are kept low and environmental, labour (union)regulations, etc., are likely to be minimal if not non-existent.
It's why much of offshored manufacturing, for example, prefers to establish itself in less or non-democratic areas.
I suggest this may be oversimplifying the case. Offshore manufacturing takes place in these countries because they have not yet reached a standard of living that requires workers be paid 1st world wages - Mind you, I'm *not* taking a position on this practice - While we hear reports of terrible conditions, abysmal wages (to a Canadian or US Cit, a couple of bucks a day sounds like slavery, in truth), near-indentured servitude - in fact, while these conditions exist, there are also manufacturing facilities 'offshore' whose employees actually earn more money than their national averages - remember the sweatshops as recently as the early 1900s here in the US?? Looking back at those institutions, we might today, from our 'enlightened' viewpoint, realize that they were not so different.
The real difference is the creation of wealth that happens in developed societies - oddly, most of those appear to be capitalistic and have *some* form of middle class and, indeed, some form of democracy - at any rate, it doesn't just happen to a few edge case 'billionaire' examples - if you truly believe that, then you might as well hang it up, because those edge cases - people who benefit wildly (notice I didn't say "disproportionately", because that word implies that there is a certain amount of benefit that's good and beyond that - you're outta line!!)- are always going to exist. As are the many millions of people who benefit greatly and others who somewhat benefit, and, yes, folks who get little or no benefit from the general increase in societal wealth. I agree with some of the posters in that it's an imperfect system, but I think it looks a lot better when you start comparing the blend of "capitalism / educated, more affluent middle class / democracy-in-some-form" to other anything else. And, I have to agree with Chris - countries like China, whose ideological bent appears to be at odds with their recent capitalistic upswing, are likely to find themselves at a crossroads before too long.
Posted by: Jeffle | September 14, 2007 at 10:16 AM
It amazes me how I read forums and people whine about the rich. In this case people expect their bosses or the gov't to reward them or intervene in someway. If you dont like how your superiors treat you then run your own company. Oh, and don't expect the gov't to tax the rich. Afterall their the reason most people are employed.
If you want change then perhaps you need to control your own destiny. Here's how: Get a trade that will immediately pay off....Use the money from your new job to learn direct marketing...pic your passion and voila...you'll be rich too. Make sure you have your business system in place and run with it....now you don't have to be envious.
To be honest it isn't really that hard to get ultra rich. 6 degrees of seperation...you wont learn the methods in school despite what we are told.
Posted by: anon | December 07, 2007 at 12:36 PM