With all this talk about the disparity in income

 going on I suppose I ought to enter the fray.

A lot of fools want the minimum wage raised and I've already pointed out that that is no good and I won't repeat myself here.

A lot of people gripe that CEOs make too much money or are overpaid. I don't think so.

Listen to this.

"The damned overpaid CEOs make too much money," babbled a liberal a while ago.

"They're worth it," I countered.

"How do you figure that?" the liberal answered.

"The shareholders vote to pay it. If the guy wasn't worth it the shareholders wouldn't pay him that kind of money." I answered.

"Yeah, but...." he stuttered.

"Look, the CEO of GM keeps 219,000 people working not including the God knows how many subcontractors they have making stuff outside of assembly lines. How many people do you pay weekly paychecks to?" I interrupted.

"Uh, I work for someone," he said.

"None. You don't have one single employee to keep busy. Not one. Yet the CEO of GM has 219,000 paychecks to write every week. He's responsible for that. He's worth every dime he gets." I said.

"How do you figure that?" he asked again. Looks like we're going around twice.

"He has agreed to work for that amount of money and the shareholders have agreed to pay it," I said. "Sounds fair to me. Just like in your case. You get paid what you do because you agreed to work for it and your boss agreed to pay it."

"Yeah, well, I'm underpaid," he said.

"No you're not. If you were you would be working somewhere else," I replied.

"Jobs in my field are hard to come by," he said.

"Because the market is flooded," I explained. "If you chose a different major in college you would be making more money. I just watched a young girl graduate and start off at about $75K last spring. She chose her major wisely."

"It's still not fair," he said.

"Look, you're worried about what the CEO of General Motors is making and you don't have any right to say a damned thing about it because you're not involved in any way. You're just running your mouth," I said.

"What do you mean by that," he snapped, indignantly.

"You have nothing to do with GM whatsoever except maybe you drive one of their cars. Nothing. You're just sticking your nose into someone else's business."

"Why isn't it my business?" he asked.

"Because you don't own a single share in General Motors. If you did you would be able to go to the stockholder's meeting and suggest the rest of the stockholders vote the CEO out and replace him with someone that would do the job for $75K a year," I said. "Then you really should sell your shares after you do that because your stock investment is going to tank pretty fast. Good leadership costs good money."

"But...but," he stuttered.

"But if you don't like what the CEO of General Motors is making then buy stock in the company, form a consensus among other stockholders and can him. It's as easy as that. If not that stop whining," I shot back.

I suppose he didn't like that very much but that's not my problem. The CEO of a large corporation earns his money with his skill, talents and drive just as the guy working at a minimum wage job earns his.

There is nothing stopping the guy flipping burgers from finding something else more profitable to do. A lot of pretty wealthy people started their working careers doing something like that and decided to do something better.

The differences in our incomes is actually a product of our talents, drives, skills and ability to market ourselves. Personally I'm fairly content where I am because if I wasn't I'd be doing something else.

I know I do not have the talents to run a major corporation and that's OK. I found a niche where I am content. I pretty much have what I want. If I didn't I'd have likely found a way to get it.

I suppose someone is going to say the Feds ought to put some kind of cap on someone's income. That's pretty stupid because if they do the people that are worth it will take their skills somewhere else and start clobbering us from overseas.




To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY