America held hostage: Day 2,973
Rush Limbaugh’s new contract with Clear Channel is worth $400M through the end of 2016.
Meanwhile, Keith Olbermann gets a paltry $30M over four years.
Will somebody alert George Soros and the rest of the liberal media elite establishment?
lullaby pit 
Mind control is expensive! So, does the disparity in pay reflect Limbaugh’s relative seniority/experience? Or is it just that his BS is harder to sell and is therefore more valuable?
Remember, those opiates are expensive, so Limbaugh obviously needs more money. Besides, Olbermann at least has the satisfaction of not being thrown off of his football show… yet.
Both salaries are excessive. This is part of the problem. Middle class folks give 25 to 45 years of their lives to a Corporation and many won’t make a million over their entire career! CEO’s, CFO’s, COO’s, MFO’s (I just threw that one in) salaries are going to HAVE to come down a bit. Warren Buffet as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway earns $100,000 annually. BH is still viable. Why other CEO’s need to be paid 40 times more is simply because aren’t smart enough to run a company; however, they are smart enough to steal from their companies and their shareholders. Take off the blinders, morons! This ever widening chasm between the very wealthy and the struggling middle class has to be greatly narrowed. I suppose Rush’s arteries are narrowing, but, then again, I’m sure he’s taking some drug to preclude that event. If only we all had great health care!
Rush is paid what he makes because he produces his employer a great profit. A-Rod is paid what he makes because he produces a great profit. Some of the CEO’s who are cozy with the boards should be paid by long term incentive, with bonuses of 15 year calls at a real high strike price.
Jeff
Warren Buffet makes 40 times less and is sometimes the 1st or 2nd richest man in the world. A-Rod is an athlete — couldn’t Wheaties be cheaper? Rush doesn’t earn a cent — the money he is paid is for putting out the propaganda or the “talking points”. As you can see, those talking points are now more valuable to Clear Channel. They are getting ready for the fight of their lives if our government reembraces an “equal time” rule for radio and television, rather than having right wing radio talk show take up 90 percent of the airwaves. Got a feeling, you right wingers will be saying goodbye to “fair and balanced” which was neither and kind of looked like the “moral majority” which was neither.
Jeff: If I understand correctly, no matter how much you get paid, you’re worth it?
Dr. Slammy,
If you earn your employer a solid profit, whatever you’re paid, you’re worth a big percentage, and there’s no problem with that. And if your employer is stupid enough to pay you too much money, then it’s the employers fault, not yours for accepting the deal. If AIG offered me $100 Million to do…..whatever, I’d be a fool not to take it.
I don’t think the CEO’s at GM or Ford are worth their compensation packages, nor do I think the rank and file are worth the $70+/hr wage and benefit package. However, it’s not me to judge the merits of what one is paid, my job is to judge the effect of excessive payroll spending on the market and position myself accordingly.
That being said, I do find some corporate leader packages to be rather excessive, and believe that their recompense should be tied to performance. If a CEO manages a start up from nothing to a 100 billion dollar enterprise, I have no problem with him taking a 2/20 or even a 2/30 deal.
Excess wages go in cycles, and the market tends to take care of things like that.
Right now, the equities and commodities markets are going down in tandem. The sell off is pretty hard, and I’m on the short side of the market. Needless to say, I’ve managed to make an obscene amount of money in a short time. Although I’ve placed myself at tremendous risk in my trades, I’ve managed to be dead on right about the market, and expect to be paid accordingly. Is it wrong for me to profit, while everyone who hasn’t been keeping their eye on the ball watches their 401-K in free fall? Remember, I could have gone long, and gone bankrupt, like a good trading friend of mine did several weeks ago. I posted his story and his market obituary here, and it makes for a good read on the foibles of human mistakes.
http://masteroftheuniverse.wordpress.com/2008/10/04/the-consequences-of-being-wrong/
Even the fat cats can get wiped out.
Jeff
So if I take this at face value, it seems that the only logic you allow is profit. You’d strongly challenge any assertion that we should evaluate any person, policy, law, whatever, in terms that began from, say, a moral base instead of an economic one?
Dr. Slammy,
I’m too much of an Objectivist to deny the moral virtue of profit.
Jeff
Nice, but that wasn’t the question.
So if I take this at face value, it seems that the only logic you allow is profit.
Do you mean any person, policy or law in the economic arena or in the world at large?
Sam,
Profit, or the fruit of profit, is the engine fuel that drives everything in the world. Without profit, there would be no civilization as we know it. Without profit, there would be anarchy. Profit is good, and profit is a moral virtue. Profit can be described in terms other than monetary or commercial. Ideally, everyone in the world will try to come out at the end of the day with a little more(whether it be ideas, knowledge, morals, possessions, love, etc.) than they had when the day began, which is profit. It all starts with the money, but money these days is a rather abstract concept.
Jeff
Ann: Policy and law – basically, are there valid bases for official action other than economic?
Jeff: Thank you. That sums it up just about how I thought you would.
Sam,
You’re quite welcome:)
Jeff
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