He was a magician – he made tons of money for investors through dividends and share buyback. His total yearly compensation was excess of $20 million. This man believed that some of his staff could just be fine with minimum wage, but he deserved all the tonnage of digital benjamins that were hitting his bank account.
Then Coronavirus hit, unfortunately, and suddenly, this magician is asking for a bailout from the government. Yes, the man who had expected working mothers of three to support their lives on minimum wage, now thinks that the American people should save the company he leads! Interestingly, his wish is on track; the $2 trillion stimulus package makes it a near-certainty.
You see the irony?The company is on its own minimum now, but instead of him dealing with it the way minimum wage workers have been struggling-out over ages, this capitalist believes that the government must come and help the company.
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Covid-19 is bad – no debate on that. But our world must not forget in a hurry what is happening with these overpaid human magicians who think they are special, and must be paid with all the cash truckloads in the company, even when their workers are on government food stamps.
It is painful that a man who is paid excess of $22 million does not have the talent to save his company, rain or sunshine. I get it – getting the government involved is part of his magical leverageable capabilities! Yet, that was a bailout – and I am hoping he bails out his minimum wage workers when sunshine returns, post Covid-19.
Just imagine if he had gone with $7 million, on peacetime, giving his comrades opportunities to rise further at better pay. But no way, the capitalist magicians cannot be traded below market value!
Why do we privatize success but quickly socialize (nationalize) problems when bad things happen? Of course, this is not to say that Covid-19 is not very unfortunate; I support bailouts to companies. Yet, the world needs to use this vehicle to bring common sense on compensations and the disparities between CEOs and low-level workers.
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You are asking the world to use common sense? Go through history, where and where did you see humans scaling common sense? It has never happened, and the bad news is that we are becoming dumber, even with all the technological and enlightened shenanigans.
Focusing on the overpaid CEOs will be missing the point, you need to go a step back to where the fraud is hatched: the universities!
The ones we term IVY Leagues, can anyone in his or her right sense truly justify the fees they command just to give you an MBA? But somehow we think we are smart! So once we hatch the scam there, the lieutenants go on to infect corporations and their boards, and magically, they are special!
Look at all the fallen business empires or corporations, was any of the CEOs trained at Unilag, FUTO or UNN? You are likely to hear Harvard, Stanford or MIT, but they still crashed companies…
It’s a cult thing: just create a class, make normal idiots look extraordinary, and pay them as though they have escaped being dumb.
Of course we need to bailout the corporations, else we will still go down with them, that’s why the world is rigged. After all politicians are paid for spending other people’s money, and for telling cheap lies.
World of wonders!
Interesting perspective as always
Still, this pandemic will not be an eye-opener to the capitalist. And our leaders. None will learn the need to make the world beautiful and create safety circles for those around them. COVID 19 is already an eye-opener, it’s only left to them to see. Thanks for sharing, Prof.
We do hope the world will not miss the lesson from this evil pandemic when it is all over.