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ostentatious consumption
Apr. 16th, 2006 12:43 amdoes anyone, in any job, actually deserve to be paid $144,573/day? (that's 516 times what i was making at EA, by the way, and considering myself adequately paid for my experience and the market at that. it's 814 times the median american family income for 2005. do the math. and i bet he got a hell of a lot more vacation days than any of us did.)
rewarding executives for outstanding job performance is one thing. ensuring that they can own not only a mansion und a yacht, but also their own third world country and the dictator who runs it, plus an ermine-lined private jet completely covered in Swarovski crystals, featuring live in-flight entertainment by the Cirque du Soleil, in which to fly there is just a bit much, don't you think?
personally, i not only say it's completely outrageous, i say anyone who makes that much money and isn't giving significant amounts of it to good causes is a total scumbag. (in fairness, i have no idea how much Raymond may or may not have given.) no one -- not even if he has 20 children and 100 grandchildren, all of whom drive Lamborghinis and are dying of cancer -- can possibly have a use for that much money.
accumulating wealth is all well and good. people are certainly entitled to provide well -- even extremely well -- for their offspring. but with the number of people dying every day in the world due to war, famine, and disease, there's no excuse for one individual, or even one family, hanging on to sums of money so great that its only possible purpose could be either buying off the entire Senate or needlessly extravagant expenditures. like, for instance, $87,600 cocktails.
(no, i'm not suggesting this should be enforced. for christ's sake, i'd rather have that kind of money in the hands of Keith Richards on a heroin-fuelled bender than the US government.)
discuss.
rewarding executives for outstanding job performance is one thing. ensuring that they can own not only a mansion und a yacht, but also their own third world country and the dictator who runs it, plus an ermine-lined private jet completely covered in Swarovski crystals, featuring live in-flight entertainment by the Cirque du Soleil, in which to fly there is just a bit much, don't you think?
personally, i not only say it's completely outrageous, i say anyone who makes that much money and isn't giving significant amounts of it to good causes is a total scumbag. (in fairness, i have no idea how much Raymond may or may not have given.) no one -- not even if he has 20 children and 100 grandchildren, all of whom drive Lamborghinis and are dying of cancer -- can possibly have a use for that much money.
accumulating wealth is all well and good. people are certainly entitled to provide well -- even extremely well -- for their offspring. but with the number of people dying every day in the world due to war, famine, and disease, there's no excuse for one individual, or even one family, hanging on to sums of money so great that its only possible purpose could be either buying off the entire Senate or needlessly extravagant expenditures. like, for instance, $87,600 cocktails.
(no, i'm not suggesting this should be enforced. for christ's sake, i'd rather have that kind of money in the hands of Keith Richards on a heroin-fuelled bender than the US government.)
discuss.
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