Rick's April Tirade
The Mathematics of Excess
It all began at a dinner party I attended back in the early
1980s. The Age of Greed was already in flower, and the topic of
conversation naturally turned to money.
I can't recall what prompted me to speak my mind; it must have
been a discussion of salaries -- an especially vexing topic for a
young man who had been laboring as an underpaid drudge in the world
of publishing. In any case, I remember the exact words of my
declaration:
"I don't think anybody deserves to make more than ten times as
much as anybody else."
After a moment of silence that resounded from one end of the
dining room to another, my fellow dinner-guests bombarded me with
sallies of outrage and derision:
"Oh, come on!" "Are you SERIOUS?" "That's
SOCIALISM!"
I calmly justified my argument. I stated that anyone who put in a
full day of work -- even as a lowly table-sweeper at McDonald's --
deserved to earn at least ten percent as much as the CEO. Anything
less would be a slap in the face of hard work, a mockery of earnest
and time-consuming labor.
"But what about the decisions, the pressures, the millions
of dollars in REVENUES that a CEO brings into his company?"
My reply went something like this: "The CEO brings in
revenues only because he's in a POSITION to bring in revenues.
That's his job. He's not working any harder than the table-sweeper,
and he probably makes more mistakes. I'd say a pay ratio of ten to
one is extreme enough."
Today I'm glad I gave those capitalist noses a gentle tweak. In
fact, those noses demand a bit of tweaking now more than ever. We're
still mired in an age of blatant and shameless money-grubbing, with a
favored few reaping an absurd share of the spoils. Their outlandish
pay -- disproportionate to any consideration of intrinsic worth --
makes a depressing mockery of everyone else's efforts, especially
MINE. And ever since that memorable dinner party, I've made a minor
hobby of studying the upper extremes of monetary compensation.
Here in the venerable republic of Clintonia, top baseball players
routinely sign for $10 million or more a season. Their defenders
justify the colossal sums in terms of their drawing power at the
stadium gate. But what about those obscure shortstops with .259
batting averages who still reap $3 million for a season's work?
Nobody's rushing out to the ballpark and buying overpriced hot dogs
to watch THEM play.
Or what about those interchangeable relief pitchers with lifetime
won-lost records of 38-44? They work half an hour a day for six
months and make a hundred times as much as Joe Average with his
$30,000-a-year salary. And still they complain to their agents:
"Come on, Max. Dutch Ramonez was 4-7 last year -- and he's
getting $3.8 million. Hell, I won two more games than him and I'm
only making $3.1 million. Gimme a break." My thoughts exactly.
Let's move west now, to southern California, to that dazzling
realm of riotous palm trees and turquoise swimming pools, of
whitewashed tile-roofed mansions basking under pale orange skies.
We're in Hollywood and its lush environs, home to some of the most
spectacularly overpaid individuals on the planet.
Mildly talented sitcom star and ex-convict Tim Allen now commands
$1.25 million for EACH EPISODE of his inexplicably popular
"Home Improvement" series. Think about it, folks: you show
up for a few longish workdays, stand on your marks, smile
quizzically for the cameras, recite a handful of unmemorable lines
backed by a laugh track -- and deposit another $1.25 million in your
personal bank account. EVERY WEEK for six months. Then you get the
remaining half of the year to recuperate, splash around in your pool
and do lunch with Cybill Shepherd or Danny DeVito.
How long would it take Joe Average to earn the pleasingly plump
sum awarded to Tim Allen for a week's work? No need to pull out your
pocket calculator -- I've done the math for you.
At $30,000 per annum, our friend Joe would have to labor for
exactly forty-one years and eight months to reap his $1.25 million.
That's the work of an entire career, a span that would see our
friend transformed from a fresh-faced young graduate into a
grizzled, disillusioned low-level manager on the brink of retirement
and congestive heart failure. Forty-one years and eight months of
servitude for Joe Average equals one week for Tim Allen. That's some
equation.
Now let's advance to a loftier level of stardom: the top male
box-office draws who command approximately $20 million per film.
Here we're looking at immortals like Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis and
Arnold Schwarzenegger -- acknowledged by common consent as the grand
panjandrums of their profession. How does Joe Average stack up
against these sovereigns of celluloid? How long would he have to
work before he netted his $20 million?
Poor chump. To earn what Tom, Bruce or "Ahnold" make
for a SINGLE film, our overworked friend would be obligated to sweat
for 666 years and eight months. In other words, if he had reported
for work in the early 1330s, he'd be collecting his final paycheck
today.
Imagine what he could have witnessed: Gothic cathedrals soaring
stone-by-stone into the medieval sky, the Hundred Years War, the
ravages of the Black Plague, the pageantry of jousting tournaments,
damsels in distress, the dark clouds of arrows raining on the field
of Agincourt. But he would have been too busy to notice.
And he would have labored on, oblivious to the flames that
consumed Joan of Arc, oblivious to the Renaissance. He could have
watched Admiral Columbus set sail from Spain; a century later, he
might have attended a play by an upstart young Englishman named
Shakespeare. But no doubt he would have been too exhausted to
bother. By 1664 or thereabouts -- around the time the British
captured the village of Nieuw Amsterdam and rechristened it
"New York" -- his labors would have been half-finished:
he'd have earned his first $10 million. Only another
three-and-a-third centuries to go!
But $20 million is a disarmingly modest fee compared to what
Hollywood's REAL power boys have been raking in lately. Take Michael
Ovitz, the superobnoxious superagent who was hired as president of
Disney in 1995. Forced to play second banana to chairman Michael
Eisner, Ovitz languished in his new role and was politely dispatched
after 14 months. To ease the humiliation of his departure, the good
folks at Disney awarded Mr. Ovitz a glittering severance package
valued at -- well, approximately $100 million. We're talking about a
stack of bills that would reach up to where the planes don't fly.
God almighty never had this kind of money; to make such a godlike
sum in such an ungodly manner boggles the imagination. This
middleman's middleman -- this notorious bully, described by one
industry insider as "an icon of fear" -- this odious OVITZ
-- had reaped a windfall nearly equivalent to the annual gross
national product of Micronesia -- simply by getting himself FIRED.
Now let's return to our friend Joe Average. How long, you ask
(and I knew you'd ask), would poor Joe have to push himself at
$30,000 a year to amass an Ovitz-sized fortune?
The truth is not pretty. If you're easily disturbed by flagrant
injustice, you might want to avert your eyes. Our marginally
middle-class friend would be compelled to toil -- are you ready? --
for a total of 3,333 years and four months. To enjoy what Michael
Ovitz enjoys today by the grace of Disney, good old Joe would have
had to report for work in the fourteenth century B.C.
What was happening in Joe's world at the time? Egypt's King
Tutankhamen was a new mummy, having gone to his golden sarcophagus
about a decade earlier. Another THIRTEEN CENTURIES would elapse
before Cleopatra ruled her kingdom on the Nile. And during all those
endless years, Joe would have been gainfully employed. He would have
lived and worked through the Trojan War, the reigns of David and
Solomon, the rise and fall of Assyria, the trial of Socrates, the
conquests of Alexander the Great. If he saved his shekels, he could
have booked a package tour of the Seven Wonders of the World. And
when the King of Kings was born to that virgin in Bethlehem, Joe
could have relaxed in the knowledge that he had a mere 2,000 years
to go before retirement. Finally, when his work was done, he could
have reflected on his 3,333 years and four months of labor -- and
taken comfort from the fact that he'd made as much as Michael Ovitz
did on the day he parachuted out of Disney.
ENOUGH, you say! Hasn't Joe slaved too long for any mortal? This
is unendurable -- give the man a rest! Afraid not; we have yet
another sum for our friend to earn.
Back to Disney for a moment. It's December 1997, only a year
after the fall of Ovitz. Disney chieftain Michael Eisner -- he of
the mild countenance and relatively modest $750,000 annual salary --
has decided to exercise his stock options. His net gain for picking
up the phone that day? $516 million.
A hundred million here, a hundred million there, and eventually
we're talking about REAL MONEY. $516 million is simply too
gargantuan a sum to digest in the abstract; let's translate it into
work-years for Joe Average. How long THIS time, Joe?
I regret to tell you that I actually ran out of digits on my
calculator. But after trimming a zero to fit Eisner's harvest onto
the display window, I made an adjustment, pushed the button, and lo!
the figure stood at 17,200 years!
Joe's time machine would deposit him in the Upper Paleolithic era
for his first day on the job. Chances are he'd be working with tools
made of flint or bone -- and that he might have to dodge an
occasional sabertooth on his strolls outside the cave. He'd need to
wrap himself in furs -- this is the Ice Age, after all, and anti-fur
activists are as scarce as wheels; neither would appear on the scene
for many millennia to come.
Squatting before his cave-fire on a chilly evening, with his
hairy wife dozing contentedly at his side, our Joe can look forward
to a long and satisfying career... a career that would encompass the
ascent of man from stone-age warrior to cybercreature. If he waited
17,180 years, he and his family could even visit Disney World. And
maybe Michael Eisner, good man that he is, would give them a free
pass for the day.
Now for the clincher. Imagine for a moment that YOU'RE Joe
Average. Your lifetime goal is to earn an amount equal to the
current net worth* of Microsoft mogul and alpha-geek Bill Gates. At
$30,000 a year, how far back in time should you embark on your
career if you want to retire as Bill's peer today?
Remember the movie "One Million B.C."? Try going back
another 600,000 years. And be careful not to look that
Australopithecus in the eye. He's never seen a member of your
species before.
* As of March 28, 1998, Bill Gates's net worth stood at
approximately $48 billion.
Here's the complete archive of Rick Bayan's immortal tirades for your reading pleasure:
December 2002 — Hello, I Must Be Going
November 2002 — A Raving Moderate
August 2002 — Is Western Civilization Worth Saving?
July 2002 — To Scam or Be Scammed
June 2002 — I Read the News Today, Oh Boy
May 2002 — Speechophobia
April 2002 — Fanatics on Parade
March 2002 — The Prestige Gap: A Lament
February 2002 — On Becoming a Dullard
January 2002 — Art for Slackers
December 2001 — An Unsolicited Christmas Card
November 2001 — A Tale of Two Tribes
October 2001 — On the Fallen Towers
August 2001 — Why Do We Bother?
June 2001 — Notes from a Doomed Planet
May 2001 — The Museum of Discarded Names
April 2001 — Indecision
March 2001 — A Slight Case of Insanity
February 2001 — Letter to a Conscientious Critic
January 2001 — The Cynic's Inaugural Address
December 2000 — The 50th Tirade
November 2000 — Travel Advisory
October 2000 — Beyond Work
September 2000 — More Work
August 2000 — Work
July 2000 — The Doves' Nest
June 2000 — Great Affectations
May 2000 — Tale of a Virtual Village
April 2000 — The World Is My Obstacle Course
March 2000 — A Living Heck
February 2000 — On the Treachery
of Time
January 2000 — A Letter to the
Future
December 99 — Rare Bird
November 99 — Not Just Another
Obscure Ethnic Group
October 99 — Extinction Reconsidered
September 99 — Good Life, Bad
Life, Better Life
August 99 — Household Relics:
An Elegy
July 99 — A Meditation on Profanity
June 99 — In Praise of Sloth
May 99 — A Bug's Death
April 99 — Obligations!
March 99 — The Courage to Be Ordinary
February 99 — A Grave Story
January 99 — What's Left for
Men?
December 98 — On the Uses of
Friends
November 98 — A Cynic's Thanksgiving
October 98 — Grand Illusions
September 98 — Filth
August 98 — Will the Real God
Please Stand Up?
July 98 — Adventures in Downsizing
June 98 — Lady Longevity
May 98 — Uniquely Human, Uniquely
Clueless
April 98 — The Mathematics of Excess
March 98 — Humbuggery
February 98 — Love and the Single
Cynic
January 98 — By the Sweat of
Your Brow
December 97 — Is Suffering Unfashionable?
November 97 — The Tao of Housekeeping
October 97 — The Sensory Deprivation
Blues
September 97 — Down with Natural
Selection!
August 97 — Noise
July 97 — On Eating Our Fellow Creatures
June 97 — Trouble in Book-Land
May 97 — Interview with an Unemployable
Man
April 97 — The Cynic's Dream
March 97 — Inequalities
February 97 — Flesh and Mortality
January 97 — How to Be a Success
December 96 — Why I Can't Hate
Christmas
November 96 — How I Became a Cynic
