Posted by Tina
“When you help a company raise capital, to put its idea to work, and you create jobs, those jobs are the best housing program, education program, nutrition program, health program ever created.
Phil Gramm was my number one choice for president way back when he was running against Bob Dole in the Republican primary race. He dropped out shortly after tsomeone (left media) made a bigoted remark about his wife. I dont know if that had anything to do with his decision to leave the rae but I wouldnt blame him if it didwho needs that? Hes been away from politics for awhile but now hes got his toe back in the water as an economic advisor to John McCain. Ive missed him on the political scene; he has an amusing way of explaining serious economic matters.
CEO pay is one of those things few of us understand and too many of us have a hissy over on a regular basis. Mr. Gramm gives justification a shot in the following excerpt from an article in The Wall Street Journal. Go aheadslap a smile on your face and prepare to expand your mind:
Phil Gramm The Return of Dr. No, by Stephen Moore Wall Street Journal
Most of his former colleagues probably can’t fathom why Wall Street bankers make tens of millions of dollars in salaries and bonuses each year. How would he justify these fat pay days? “It’s simple,” he lectures, sounding very much like the Texas A&M economics professor that he was in the 1970s: “In economics, we define labor exploitation as paying people less than their marginal value product. I recently told Ed Whitacre [former CEO of AT&T, who retired with a $158 million pay package] he was probably the most exploited worker in American history because he took Southwestern Bell, which was the smallest of the former Bell companies, and he turned it into the dominant phone company on earth. His severance package should have been billions.” ** Mr. Gramm says that today there is “a lucrative premium for talent. When we were all hunters and gatherers, and you were better with a bow and arrow than I was, there were limits on how much more game you could kill than me. Today, CEO decisions about whether to acquire or not acquire a company, to shut down one part of the company or not shut it down, get into a market, get out of a market, where those decisions mean billions of dollars, is it surprising that people are willing to pay tremendous amounts of money for people who make those decisions right?” ** So what if a President Barack Obama were to impose 50% or 60% tax rates on these CEOs and other big earners? Mr. Gramm pounces: “When you help a company raise capital, to put its idea to work, and you create jobs, those jobs are the best housing program, education program, nutrition program, health program ever created. Look, if a man in one lifetime is responsible for creating 100 real jobs, permanent jobs, then he’s done more than most do-gooders have ever achieved.”
AMEN to that! People on the left say this all the time…they use a favorite aphorism”:
Give a man a fish and you feed him for one day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
CEO’s create a lot of opportunity for many men and women to feed themselves and their families. They deserve to be well compensated for this enourmous contribution to society.