inkbluesky

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THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

by Robert Frost

Why Are American Executives Paid So Much?

My old boss Henry Waxman has just launched an intriguing new investigation: why, exactly, are American executives pulling in such stratospheric paychecks? CEOs and CFOs in the U.S. make 400 times what the average worker earns. In 1965, it was more like a factor of 20.

While I have heard the argument over and over again that unions are bad. They reportedly don’t allow by the nature of their structure for the most productive workers to be compensated to the level to which they are entitled because of the poor productivity of less ambitious workers - this isn’t true, but that has never stopped a lie from being repeated. I have never heard the very same people explain how America has come to have an executive class which receives salaries much like old world aristocracy received their compensation; that is simply because they are and have always been a privileged class and merit based performance just does not apply to them the same way it does to the woman that fixes your plumbing and builds your car. A commenter at the link to this story left this ( warning link is a pdf)

“In 2005, average total compensation for CEOs of 350 leading U.S. corporations was $11.6 million.” A CEO making $10 million/year makes as much money in a month as someone working at the minimum wage makes in her lifetime. There is no reasonable justification for one person to make as much money in a month as another earns in a lifetime. No matter how smart, beautiful, refined, charismatic, brave, clever, educated, experienced, or hard working, no human being deserves to receive a thousand times as much money as another.