News of the Weird
Nov. 22nd, 2005 04:07 pmhttp://www.newsoftheweird.com/
Chief executive officers at 367 top U.S. corporations were paid, on average, $431 last year for every $1 paid to their companies' average production worker, according to publicly available information jointly compiled in September by Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy. In 1990, the ratio was about $100-to-$1. (If the federal minimum wage had increased since 1990 by the same rate as the multiple for CEOs' pay, it would have risen from $5.15 an hour to $23.03, but, of course, it's still $5.15.) [New York Times, 9-4-05]
(At one time, the CEO of Toyota (or some other Japanese car maker) was limited in salary to no more than something like 20 times what the lowest paid worker was making. I have no idea if that is still true, but I liked it. And the preceding is based on average production worker wages, not lowest. Sigh. A clear demonstration that capitalism has no soul.)
Erica Salmon, originally a fantasy-football-league "widow" because of her husband's seasonal mania, has now become mogul of her own fantasy league: of famous fashion designers. According to an October report by the Des Moines Register, managers draft teams consisting of three clothing designers, plus one each designer of shoes, handbags, jewelry and celebrity clothing, and then three celebrities, and they get points daily for the number and quality of name-mentions in Women's Wear Daily and other fashion and style magazines. As with football leagues, trades are permitted once a week. [Des Moines Register, 10-20-05]
Chief executive officers at 367 top U.S. corporations were paid, on average, $431 last year for every $1 paid to their companies' average production worker, according to publicly available information jointly compiled in September by Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy. In 1990, the ratio was about $100-to-$1. (If the federal minimum wage had increased since 1990 by the same rate as the multiple for CEOs' pay, it would have risen from $5.15 an hour to $23.03, but, of course, it's still $5.15.) [New York Times, 9-4-05]
(At one time, the CEO of Toyota (or some other Japanese car maker) was limited in salary to no more than something like 20 times what the lowest paid worker was making. I have no idea if that is still true, but I liked it. And the preceding is based on average production worker wages, not lowest. Sigh. A clear demonstration that capitalism has no soul.)
Erica Salmon, originally a fantasy-football-league "widow" because of her husband's seasonal mania, has now become mogul of her own fantasy league: of famous fashion designers. According to an October report by the Des Moines Register, managers draft teams consisting of three clothing designers, plus one each designer of shoes, handbags, jewelry and celebrity clothing, and then three celebrities, and they get points daily for the number and quality of name-mentions in Women's Wear Daily and other fashion and style magazines. As with football leagues, trades are permitted once a week. [Des Moines Register, 10-20-05]