28 December 2006

A Cautionary Tale

In this December 15 story, the New York Times reported that the head of Morgan Stanley was slated to receive a $40 million bonus for 2006. They didn't report some other numbers of interest: that Morgan Stanley's income had increased 26% to $33 billion, that it reserved nearly $3.5 billion for taxes, that its net income increased by 46% to 7.4 billion, that it spent $14.4 billion on compensation and benefits and that John Mack, its CEO had refused any bonus the year before.

In any event, the Times comment section is now filled with some of the most ignorant commentary on the web, mostly attacking but also supporting Mr. Mack's bonus. Surprisingly, though, the stupidest comment of all is not hard to detect. It jumps right off that page. Less than 90 minutes after the story was posted, "jb" delivered him or herself of this gem:
That’s great! Now he can go out and buy shoes for the maintenance workers’ children. CEO’s should not make more than 10 times the lowest paid worker in their firm!

And we wonder why ten million young muslim men are angry?
This put me in mind of one of my least favorite leftist tactics: that some emergency requires us all to sacrifice by -- what an amazing coincidence -- adopting the preexisting lefty political platform wholesale. (Sometimes we see the right do this, too, but must less often.) This can be seen most clearly when it comes to global warming. To save the planet, we must all sacrifice by nationalizing everything, reducing our population, reducing our economy, etc., etc., etc. Here, the war on terror requires us to limit CEO compensation. It's just happenstance that the left has wanted to do this for decades, anyway.

This is related to the need to believe (as AOG recently noted) that we are in control and our enemies are all ciphers. The Islamists are not committed to our destruction. They're just mad at income inequality. All we need to do is punish some people we hate anyway (CEOs, not murderous barbarians who shoot back) and we can solve this pesky terror problem.

3 comments:

Susan's Husband said...

And here I thought the Caliphascists were upset over our failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocols.

Unknown said...

That’s great! Now he can go out and buy shoes for the maintenance workers’ children. CEO’s should not make more than 10 times the lowest paid worker in their firm!

Does anyone really think that a maintenance worker doesn't make enough money to buy his children shoes? Some people can't let go of the fact that we are no longer living in Dicken's London. The lowest paid workers in our economy live better than Ebenezer Scrooge did.

Malcontents on the left don't have much real deprivation to fuel their rage anymore, they now live on relative inequality. If someone can make enough to live comfortably, does it matter how much more money someone else makes?

David said...

Good point. A real maintenance worker -- that is, a skilled mechanic who, through maintenance, keeps your plant and machines up and running -- is worth his weight in gold.