The media has whipped the TV-watching public into a frenzy over federal bailout funds being used to pay salary bonuses to top company CEOs who already make huge salaries.
I understand the frustration. I have opposed the bailouts from the beginning, on constitutional, political, economic, and moral grounds. And if there was to be a bailout at all, it more limits should be placed on how the funds are to be used.
But some of the media attacks have taken the form of Marxist class warfare. These executives must be evil and undeserving, because they are The Rich. And as everyone knows, The Rich are the enemies of The People.
Stop just a minute. Why would any corporation’s board of directors, elected by the shareholders, vote to pay a CEO $10 million plus bonuses? Other than insanity, there can be only one reason: they are convinced that CEO can more than $10 million for the company.
Who should determine the appropriate salary for a CEO, or a file clerk, or any other company employee? If not the law of supply and demand, then who? The government?
Fomenting public hostility toward high-income CEOs, the media rely both on Marxist-inspired class jealousy and upon a flawed Marxist understanding of economics. Marxism views the economy as a closed system in which there is a fixed amount of wealth, and therefore any dollar that I earn is one less dollar for someone else. In fact, the economy is an open system. CEOs do not take wealth from others. By creating a new product or opening a new market, the CEO creates new wealth, from which he and others profit.
And when are the media going to focus their Hate-the-Rich spotlight upon themselves. Katie Couric’s annual pay has been around $15 million, Tom Brokaw around $10 million, Brian Williams around $10 million, David Letterman about $31.5 million, and Jay Leno around $32 million. By their reasoning, are they too not Enemies of the People?
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