05 November 2012

"Panem et circenses"

("Bread and circuses")
When you exchange money for a good or service, you’re telling people that the time you spent doing whatever job it is that you do is being exchanged for the time they spent doing whatever it is that they do. What we do as a society is place a value on how much that time is worth in relation to what you produce. Let’s look at how we value time in this country (if you want to find these numbers, just Google “median [job] compensation” — numbers are closest approximations I could find; I use median because average tends to skew the numbers higher).
Median CEO – $9.6 million a year
Median NBA player – $2.33 million a year
Median NFL player – $770,000 a year
Median Physician – $278,000 a year (specialties vary)
Median Farmer/Rancher – $60,000 a year
Median Teacher – $55,000 a year
Median Firefighter – $42,000 a year
Median Janitor – $22,000 a year 
So what do these numbers tell us? That for every one year a CEO works, a doctor has to work around 34, a teacher or farmer or firefighter has to work around 175, and a janitor has to work around 436.

This is ridiculous. We value the people who keep us healthy, fed, and educated far less than those who tell others what to do, or those who play a children’s game. You’re telling me that one year of my life spent kicking a football (I make a bit above the median) is worth almost four years of a doctor’s services? That what I do on a football field is more important than teaching classrooms of children how to learn for 22 years? That someone can spend six lifetimes cleaning up after people, preventing the spread of germs and disease, and still barely approach a year’s worth of shuffling stock portfolios and mergers, of making conference calls and speculating (wildly at times) on bonds and futures?

I say, “No”. While I spend a lot of time honing my craft, there is absolutely no way the time I spend comes even close to benefiting society as much as a doctor or a teacher or a janitor. I clean no floors, I cure no sick, I put out no fires. But we continue to pay me, and people like me, obscene amounts of money; you give us your time! We tell companies and con men, “We would rather be entertained and distracted than focus on building a better future. We would rather elect politicians who pass morality laws and tax cuts to help the rich get richer; we’d rather vote for a quick fix that makes us feel good now than address the root problems of our system.”..

p.s. Some may call me a hypocrite for being a part of the system, for entertaining rather than teaching. To you I say this: “Change the system. Put me out of a job. Pay the teachers and firefighters and doctors and janitors what you pay me, and I’ll gladly do those jobs instead. Value the useful, and not the merely entertaining or self promoting; give a voice to the currently voiceless. Unfortunately, as it stands, I can only operate in the framework we’ve all created, the society that millions upon millions of Americans erect every Sunday, every election cycle, with every bailed-out bank and golden parachute they fund while bridges crumble and schools shut down.”

Are you not entertained? 
The above is an extended excerpt from an entry in Out of Bounds - the blog of Chris Kluwe, punter for the Minnesota Vikings.  The blog was formerly published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press; Kluwe is withdrawing from that forum because of the newspaper's editorial policy on the pending marriage amendment in Minnesota.

16 comments:

  1. He appears to have confused financial compensation with merit. Merit is an independent and arbitrary value that can be measured in whatever metric you want for any value you wish. Financial compensation is a direct result of economic factors that are determined not by the CEO or the janitor, but by the market as a whole. After all, this money doesn't just magically appear in the pocket of the CEO. It comes from numerous other sources that, for their own individual reasons, believed it in their own best interests to give money to this one business that the CEO operates and subsequently profits from. Sure, it would be nice if the janitor made more, but it doesn't make economic sense.

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    1. Sure, it would be nice if the janitor made more, but it doesn't make economic sense.

      It doesn't make "economic sense" that many CEO's make as much as they do either. That's because markets are flawed, easily distorted and manipulated by those with the money and power to do so. That's why CEOs get rewarded record setting bonuses for what in all other areas of business would be considered unacceptable failures that would demand their firing or the business going under. A 'sensible' market is a fantasy and a joke. There is no such thing. This non-existent sensible market is in fact controlled and rigged by a business elite. That is why money 'magically ' appears in their pockets.

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    2. "That's because markets are flawed, easily distorted and manipulated by those with the money and power to do so."

      What precisely is your definition of a "flawed" market? Or a "sensible" market? The only kind of market that can be flawed is one where external forces adjust prices for goods to something other than what the buyer is willing to pay for it or what the seller is willing to sell it for. You are outraged that CEOs are rewarded for failures? Failure in the market is inherently unprofitable. Did you ever bother to ask where the money these CEOs are rewarded with comes from, then? It certainly isn't profit from their businesses, if those businesses are failing.

      Tell me, were you a supporter of the bailouts? Did you approve of government intervention in big business then? No?

      Because that's what big government is. There is no magic regulation or rule or board of overseers that can keep a business, so immune from the consequences of failure, from acting irresponsibly. It's not the business elite that are the problem. It's the people in government, with billions in the taxpayers' money at their disposal, who think they can find that sweet spot in the market and make their constituents happy forever.

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    3. What precisely is your definition of a "flawed" market? Or a "sensible" market?

      There is no such thing as a sensible market. It doesn't exist, which is my point that your argument is based on pure markets which don't exist, and never will. That is fantasy, and non-applicable.

      Tell me, were you a supporter of the bailouts? Did you approve of government intervention in big business then? No?

      I was a supporter of: number one, investigations and arrests for fraud, 2 that any "too big to fail" financial house that couldn't rescue itself with private help should have been wound down or nationalized. After which point, no financial institution should ever again be allowed to be too big to fail. The only other options to this were bad ones: Bush/Obama's (bailouts with no strings attached and no jail time) or the childish neoliberal one: Let the economy completely fall into chaos and punish all U.S. citizens with a collapsed economy for the crimes of a handful of elites.

      It's the people in government, with billions in the taxpayers' money at their disposal

      No it's not. It's the corruption of government by elite business. We have a plutocracy. Other countries that keep checks on their wealthy elites don't have this problem. You can't blame "government" when the government is run and corrupted by elite business. We have exactly what big business wants, so the notion that government is interfering with Wall St. against its will is ridiculous.

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    4. I would like to see the reasoning behind your belief that there is no such thing as a pure market. That's an awful big statement to put forward without some significant backup, and I think you're wrong. There have been several instances in world history that reflect a relatively unimpeded market, early- and mid- 19th century America for example, that showed remarkable growth.

      Regardless, this is rapidly turning into a flame war. My original point stands. A person's income is not a function of their perceived merit, but of the market as a whole. It is the end result of thousands of transactions, not the greed of a distinct few. Dictating what a person should be compensated is unhealthy for the economy. Broad statements about "flawed" markets and the impossibility of a "fair" system, without proof (or even definitions of what a "fair" market is!) are little more than emotional outbursts dressed up in faux-intellectualism.

      You are free to claim that a CEO doesn't deserve their pay. Just remember: it's irrelevant.

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    5. "Dictating what a person should be compensated is unhealthy for the economy."

      In the companies I know about, the salary of the CEO is determined by the Board of Directors. It may fluctuate with the company's profits, but it's not mathematically corellated. The Board of Directors can even give him a bonus if the company loses money.

      So they dictate how the person is compensated.

      I agree it's unhealthy :.)

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    6. Obviously I was speaking of an external actor, not a board within the market. Don't be contrary.

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    7. I would like to see the reasoning behind your belief that there is no such thing as a pure market.

      Haha. Ok man, you tell me where one is. Somalia? The rain forests of Brazil? What stunning dishonesty.

      A person's income is not a function of their perceived merit, but of the market as a whole

      Again, if the market correctly determines pay, then why are many CEOs rewarded for failure and incompetence?* Oh, that's right, your market isn't as rational as you think it is.

      *We'll wait for you to never honestly address that.....

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  2. If there was an unlimited supply of CEO's then they would get paid very little. If there was an unlimited supply of people that punt like Kluwe, he would get paid very little. Supply and demand plays a bigger role in salary then does "good for society". Not everybody is in it for the money (like Kluwe apparently is) -- that is why we have teachers, social workers and nurses.

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    1. At least Kluwe's providing a product that requires a high degree of skill to execute and is a valuable asset to his profession. The same cannot be said of many CEO's who have got their positions by nepotism, inheritance etc. and still maintain high paying positions despite their incompetence.

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  3. I can understand why CEOs and sport players get paid so much, what really baffles me is some famous musicians and writers who profit solitarily from laws designed to protect 'intellectual property' that in effect give them a monopoply that in effect enables them to skew their customers...

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    1. Because it is so easy to copy text and music and not pay the artist. Truth is, the copyright laws protect the publisher, not necessarily the artist. Nowadays, especially in the music industry, the copyright laws are being abused to force the business plans of the distributors into law. The writing industry isn't as bad. Writers have better control over their work, so long as they are careful when negotiating the sale of rights to a publisher.

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  4. So I'm not a huge Football fan, but Football players have very short careers. The game leaves them with permanent injuries, and once they are done with Football, they are usually done working. So in the span of 5-7 years, they need to make a lifetime of income, and pay for a lifetime of medical costs that was caused by their 5-7 years of work.

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    1. The average is 3 seasons.

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    2. While they may get huge sums for playing a game, the fact of the matter is that they make even more astronomical sums for the owners and corporations in the NFL sphere. In other words: As the actual talent that makes all of it possible they deserve what they get. If owners and the corporate CEO's involved with the NFL make what they do, then players should make something comparable to what they contribute toward the billions in profits that football generates. Let's see what fans are willing to pay to see CEO's and team owners take the field instead...

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    3. Just look how fans reacted when union refs were replaced with those horrible scab refs. Ask a Packer fan if it was worth it to not toss a few pennies* toward these refs to keep them on the field.


      *literally what the kind of benefits they were asking for would cost the NFL considering its billions (about 10 billion) in profits.

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