---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carl Jarvis <carjar82@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 14:44:22 -0700
Subject: Re: Charities that make the rich richer; proving that it's
good business helping the handicapped
To: Blind Democracy Discussion List <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Cc: ceverett@dslextreme.com
Here's the thing...in my humble opinion.
We have our values screwed up. We've been trained, like Pavlov's
dogs, to salivate every time we smell a dollar.
In our world we put a monetary value on everything. An elderly woman
left a paper sack on the bus, containing five thousand dollars. A
fellow took the seat after she had exited the bus and discovered the
sack. He managed to track down the lady and return her life's
savings. And what were the first words out of the reporter's mouth?
"Did she give you a good reward?"
The man might have said, "Honesty is its own reward", but instead, he
sadly shook his head and said, "She just thanked me. Guess she
thought that was good enough. I should have kept the money if that's
all it was worth."
The super star scores points every time he gets his hands on the ball.
Fans flock to the games and the owners of the team pay him huge
amounts of money for his skill. So, is he a team member, or a super
star? If the other team members sat down and decided to simply watch
the game, as if they were spectators, what sort of a score would the
lonely player run up?
The corporate CEO takes his bonus, along with his huge salary and
tucks most of it in his off-shore banks. He is fawned over and feels
that he is so valuable to the corporation that he is merely receiving
his just reward. Is he really that important? Or is he simply one
member of a large team? How much money and business will he bring in
if all the people working for the corporation were to sit down and
watch him work?
To my way of thinking it is a cop out to argue that the market place
will determine the fair value of each person's labor. Since we can
prove that the market place can be manipulated, and there really is no
such a thing as free enterprise in the real world, why do working
class men and women continue to support such a corrupt system?
A new president will not change things. Replacing all of Congress
will make no difference. A revolution will only replace the present
Ruling Class with a new Gang of Opportunists. None of that will
amount to a hill of beans unless we shake up our entire value system.
But I know that a shake up has about as much appeal to Americans as a
bowl of soy bean chowder.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/17/14, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> mee too.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org
> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On Behalf Of Claude Everett
> Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2014 2:11 PM
> To: 'Blind Democracy Discussion List'
> Subject: RE: Charities that make the rich richer
>
> Personally I feel that no CEO or director of a company "For Profit", or
> "Non
> Profit Charity" should earn no more than 4 times the income of the lowest
> paid employee.
>
>
> Regards,
> Claude Everett
> "Every one has a disability, Some, are more aware of it than others."
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org
> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On Behalf Of ted chittenden
> Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2014 9:12 AM
> To: Blind Democracy Discussion List
> Subject: Re: Charities that make the rich richer
>
> My mom now refuses to support any United Way charities because of what the
> CEO is paid. She believes that the CEOs of charities should receive nothing
> with running the charities playing second fiddle to running actual
> businesses. Unfortunately, running a charity is actually a fulltime job in
> and of itself so I really don't think that paying the heads of charities
> absolutely nothing and expecting them to work "real" jobs in private
> businesses is really going to assist the poor (in fact, it would probably
> exacerbate the situation against the poor). However, Mr. Baker may be on
> the
> right track for both charities and profit-generating businesses when he
> suggests having set limits on executive pay based on how much their
> low-level employees earn. Unfortunately, I don't think the current Justices
> of the U.S. Supreme Court would agree with him as money is supposed to be
> free speech, and I also don't think that most executives would agree with
> him, either.
> --
> Ted Chittenden
>
> Every story has at least two sides if not more.
> ---- Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Charities that make the rich richer
> Either end obscene pay at charitable organizations or revoke their
> tax-exempt status June 16, 2014 4:15AM ET by Dean Baker @DeanBaker13 We
> usually think of charities as institutions that direct money from those on
> top to those who are most in need. But in our vibrant 21st century economy,
> charities often funnel money in the opposite direction, with the rest of us
> subsidizing the incomes of the very rich. That is the implication of
> several
> recent news stories.
> Take, for example, John Sexton, president of New York University, a
> tax-exempt institution. The university was recently in the news because of
> a
> story reporting that workers building its Abu Dhabi campus are often beaten
> and have their wages stolen. This campus is part of an ambitious expansion
> plan designed by Sexton, who reportedly makes $1.5 million a year and
> stands
> to pocket a "longevity bonus" of $2.5 million if he stays into 2015.
> The University of Chicago is another school whose president, Robert Zimmer,
> appears to be doing rather well financially. Zimmer's total compensation
> for
> 2013 was reportedly $1.9 million, after having spiked at $3.4 million the
> prior year. This compensation comes in spite of the fact that the school
> has
> an operating deficit and may be at risk of a credit downgrade.
> A study by the Institute for Policy Studies found that student debt and
> low-paid faculty increased more rapidly at the universities with the 25
> highest-paid presidents than the national average. At the very least, this
> suggests high presidential pay is not associated with scoring well in terms
> of relieving the burdens of those most in need in higher education -
> student
> debtors and adjuncts.
> There is undoubtedly much more that could be said about high-paid
> university
> administrators or heads of other nonprofits, who don't seem to be earning
> their keep. But this is not just a story of university boards possibly
> using
> bad judgment in designing compensation packages for top management. The pay
> for these millionaires comes directly out of the pockets of the rest of us
> in the same way as the food stamps or disability payments that get
> conservatives so excited.
> These institutions all enjoy special tax exemptions as charitable
> organizations. Their wealthy contributors can deduct the money they give to
> New York University or the University of Chicago from their taxable income.
> Since most of these universities' contributions come from people in the top
> tax bracket, taxpayers are effectively paying 40 cents of each dollar the
> institutions receive in contributions. That means we are picking up a large
> chunk of the paychecks of Sexton, Zimmer and the rest of the gang.
> There is a simple remedy for the high pay at tax-exempt institutions:
> Make it illegal.
> If we took the extreme case and assumed that all of a university's revenue
> came directly or indirectly from tax-deductible contributions, then
> taxpayers would have paid roughly $600,000 toward Sexton's 2013 salary and
> $680,000 of Zimmer's paycheck. For comparison purposes, the average annual
> food stamp benefit is roughly $1,600 per person. This would mean that
> taxpayers gave Sexton roughly as much money as they would to 375 of the
> "takers" who get food stamps, and Zimmer as much as 400.
> Of course, this comparison is not entirely fair. A university gets much of
> its money from tuition and other sources, so it is not correct to claim
> that
> all of its president's pay came from tax-deductible contributions. On the
> other hand, there are many charities and foundations that rely almost
> entirely on such contributions or the income from endowments that were
> created from them. In these cases it would be reasonable to assume that
> roughly 40 percent of the pay for the presidents and other top executives
> came from taxpayers.
> Most people would likely be bothered if they knew they were subsidizing the
> compensation of some of the highest-paid people in the country.
> Unfortunately, this fact is rarely mentioned in the news. We are far more
> likely to see articles on taxpayer subsidies for food stamps or disability.
> There is a simple remedy for the high pay at tax-exempt institutions: Make
> it illegal. We can just put a cap on pay at tax-exempt organizations - say,
> at 15 times the average production worker's pay (or $600,000 a year). That
> would limit the subsidy the rest of us provide to the very rich.
> This is not an interference with the freedom of the University of Chicago
> and New York University to pay their presidents whatever they like. They
> would just have to organize themselves as regular for-profit corporations.
> Then their presidents would have to figure out a way to win the charity of
> shareholders rather than taxpayers.
> Fans of the free market should be completely behind this sort of
> initiative.
> After all, if they are upset when the government gives someone $1,600 a
> year
> for food stamps, how could they not be infuriated when the government gives
> several hundred times as much to university presidents or other highly paid
> executives at tax-exempt institutions? If these presidents are worth their
> paychecks, then the private sector should be happy to cough up the money
> without needing a subsidy from the government.
> Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research
> and
> author, most recently, of The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets
> Progressive.
> The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not
> necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editori Charities that make the
> rich richer Either end obscene pay at charitable organizations or revoke
> their tax-exempt status June 16, 2014 4:15AM ET by Dean Baker @DeanBaker13
> We usually think of charities as institutions that direct money from those
> on top to those who are most in need. But in our vibrant 21st century
> economy, charities often funnel money in the opposite direction, with the
> rest of us subsidizing the incomes of the very rich. That is the
> implication
> of several recent news stories.
> Take, for example, John Sexton, president of New York University, a
> tax-exempt institution. The university was recently in the news because of
> a
> story reporting that workers building its Abu Dhabi campus are often beaten
> and have their wages stolen. This campus is part of an ambitious expansion
> plan designed by Sexton, who reportedly makes $1.5 million a year and
> stands
> to pocket a "longevity bonus" of $2.5 million if he stays into 2015.
> The University of Chicago is another school whose president, Robert Zimmer,
> appears to be doing rather well financially. Zimmer's total compensation
> for
> 2013 was reportedly $1.9 million, after having spiked at $3.4 million the
> prior year. This compensation comes in spite of the fact that the school
> has
> an operating deficit and may be at risk of a credit downgrade.
> A study by the Institute for Policy Studies found that student debt and
> low-paid faculty increased more rapidly at the universities with the 25
> highest-paid presidents than the national average. At the very least, this
> suggests high presidential pay is not associated with scoring well in terms
> of relieving the burdens of those most in need in higher education -
> student
> debtors and adjuncts.
> There is undoubtedly much more that could be said about high-paid
> university
> administrators or heads of other nonprofits, who don't seem to be earning
> their keep. But this is not just a story of university boards possibly
> using
> bad judgment in designing compensation packages for top management. The pay
> for these millionaires comes directly out of the pockets of the rest of us
> in the same way as the food stamps or disability payments that get
> conservatives so excited.
> These institutions all enjoy special tax exemptions as charitable
> organizations. Their wealthy contributors can deduct the money they give to
> New York University or the University of Chicago from their taxable income.
> Since most of these universities' contributions come from people in the top
> tax bracket, taxpayers are effectively paying 40 cents of each dollar the
> institutions receive in contributions. That means we are picking up a large
> chunk of the paychecks of Sexton, Zimmer and the rest of the gang.
> There is a simple remedy for the high pay at tax-exempt institutions:
> Make it illegal.
> If we took the extreme case and assumed that all of a university's revenue
> came directly or indirectly from tax-deductible contributions, then
> taxpayers would have paid roughly $600,000 toward Sexton's 2013 salary and
> $680,000 of Zimmer's paycheck. For comparison purposes, the average annual
> food stamp benefit is roughly $1,600 per person. This would mean that
> taxpayers gave Sexton roughly as much money as they would to 375 of the
> "takers" who get food stamps, and Zimmer as much as 400.
> Of course, this comparison is not entirely fair. A university gets much of
> its money from tuition and other sources, so it is not correct to claim
> that
> all of its president's pay came from tax-deductible contributions. On the
> other hand, there are many charities and foundations that rely almost
> entirely on such contributions or the income from endowments that were
> created from them. In these cases it would be reasonable to assume that
> roughly 40 percent of the pay for the presidents and other top executives
> came from taxpayers.
> Most people would likely be bothered if they knew they were subsidizing the
> compensation of some of the highest-paid people in the country.
> Unfortunately, this fact is rarely mentioned in the news. We are far more
> likely to see articles on taxpayer subsidies for food stamps or disability.
> There is a simple remedy for the high pay at tax-exempt institutions: Make
> it illegal. We can just put a cap on pay at tax-exempt organizations - say,
> at 15 times the average production worker's pay (or $600,000 a year). That
> would limit the subsidy the rest of us provide to the very rich.
> This is not an interference with the freedom of the University of Chicago
> and New York University to pay their presidents whatever they like. They
> would just have to organize themselves as regular for-profit corporations.
> Then their presidents would have to figure out a way to win the charity of
> shareholders rather than taxpayers.
> Fans of the free market should be completely behind this sort of
> initiative.
> After all, if they are upset when the government gives someone $1,600 a
> year
> for food stamps, how could they not be infuriated when the government gives
> several hundred times as much to university presidents or other highly paid
> executives at tax-exempt institutions? If these presidents are worth their
> paychecks, then the private sector should be happy to cough up the money
> without needing a subsidy from the government.
> Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research
> and
> author, most recently, of The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets
> Progressive.
> The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not
> necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial polic
> http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/6/charity-universitytaxexemptsext
> onzimmer.html
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blind-Democracy mailing list
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>
>
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