12-28-03

"Well, Art is Art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know." Marx Aha, which one?

Speaking of Marx (both economically and comedically), I learned that the CEO of a healthcare facility in the Portland area earned about $1.5 million in 2002 - including deferred payment and such. If this person is working the 60 hours a week that she or he claims to work, that's - uhm - $500 an hour. Whose ass is worth $500 an hour? That's $8.33 per minute, or 7.2 cents per second.

In contrast, the federal minimum wage is $5.15 per hour, which is 0.08 cents per minute, and 0.001 cents per second.

I'm not even going to try to figure in taxes and other benefits. I ain't that smart.

I wonder if the lowest-paid employee is doing %1 of the work that the CEO does? Or does the wage reflect better leverage/better skills at negotiating one's salary? What does it all mean, pussycat?

I'm not an economist and I don't understand a lot about the subject. I may have to have a bit of a lie down after writing all this, but there's something that seems wrong. I know it's complex. I don't want to make bone-headed, simplistic assumptions about how the inequities can be solved. People much more intelligent and much more educated than I haven't been able to get it right.

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