Your rant is pretty tame this time, Lissy...I've been working on one equating them to a melanoma that will just eat and eat until they've killed the host (us) and themselves, as well. They are out of control...

Good rant - and so very very true unfortunately.
Those CEO bastids don't even think of what the common man goes through on a daily basis. They are too busy flying around in their private jets, making sure their money is tied up in loopholes, worrying about what house to spend some time in next, what caviar to serve, etc. and on ad nauseum.
I really don't want to go on because my ranting will not be so nicely worded..............

They are obscene.

The bitter irony I enjoy most is to see them filing into church on any given Sunday morning. They do this to cleanse themslves of all the filth and enmity they have accumulated during the week. It makes them feel as though as they go through their lives ignoring the suffering of so many that they are somehow expiated form the sin of indifference. While those of us who are not wealthy give practically till it hurts, they give but not proportionately and they certainly make no sacrifices by so doing. To them it is an obligation, but not a priority.

For the CEO class, rarely do they have a better education than I do, and I doubt they work the kind of hours I do. Built into their days are time at the gym/health club, a couple of rounds of golf weekly, etc... they don't have to work in those things. No, I don't think the "work" they do is really all that difficult. I doubt any of them would trade what I do daily for their daily schedule of meetings, luncheons, cocktails, etc... When they travel for either work or pleasure it is often on private jets or if they go commercial it is first class all the way. Why, before AB was sold to Inbev, it is said that Mr. Busch took a helicopter in to work daily so he didn't even have to experience traffic like the rest of us do. A commute that would have taken an hour took him only minutes without a single stop light or delay. With all these luxuries and "extras" that most people would never believe the CEO class begins to mistake their stuff for an innate superiority, a sense that they are actually better than other people and that is why they have all that they have. Political leaders frequently become beguiled by the trappings of their own power in very similar fashion.

What justifies what they make? Absolutely nothing. It's just that they have the power and money to give to themselves great wealth and prestige so they do just that and they are so wrapped up in themselves and their fortunes that their humanity is left far behind and the great wealth they have accumulated benefits only themselves and their immediate families instead of making a gigantic difference for thousands and perhaps millions depending upon how sickeningly rich they are.

I can agree to an extent, you know, with the people who go on about how it's a free market, and who are we to set salaries? Why would the government even be involved.

But it's your point about balance, the sheer numbers we are talking about, that's what's too much to bear. Why could they DO with so much money, as you say? And who benefits from this? Not our ruined economy. It's frankly ridiculous.

So I'm with you, not out of friendship but out of conviction. Best, O.T.

I thought about this one overnight. Sometimes it helps.

I think we're about on the edge of a real populist revolt. Disparities like we see around us are doubleplusungood for a healthy, stable society.

The real question, and it is of vital import, is this: Will the revolt be channeled by those of us who like the idea of moderating some of the excesses in order to steady things - while still leaving plenty of incentive for enterprise, or will it be misled by the Palin/Plumber cadre, who will take advantage of people's ill-informed state and urge something much closer to fascism?

Hope, work, and teach for the former. The latter ends this experiment - badly.

LisB Maybe we should do some sort of daily expose on them as 'people'. They might not care but if we use photos we could recognize them on the street et al. 'Know thine enemy'.

Maybe is we send them a letter demanding restitution wrapped in a twenty... they might at least get the message... though they may never understand.

However just as some switch over from being Fox 'News' republicans... we must remember that some can be turned and they are the most powerful force for persuading others:)

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side

It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

-Buffalo Springfield

Oompa Loompa doompadee doo
I've got another puzzle for you
Oompa Loompa doompadee dee
If you are wise you will listen to me
Who do you blame when your kid is a brat
Pampered and spoiled like a Siamese cat?
Blaming the kids is a lion of shame
You know exactly who's to blame:
The mother and the father!
Oompa Loompa doompadee dah
If you're not spoiled then you will go far
You will live in happiness too
Like the Oompa Loompa doompadee do

C

Thanks, everybody, for all the great comments. It was a simple rant, really, but some of your comments are really thoughtful - and thought-provoking! Thanks.

Here's the enemy of whom you speak: Not the CEO; he, after all, did his damage to the little people while climbing the ladder and now merely collects millions. Rather, the enemy consists of those who aspire to be the Alpha Male, the ones who are outdoing each other in doing damage to stand out, to be the best at damage, real players.
Who are these guys? Generically, every one of them is someone, probably not native to New York, who many have had some surprising glitches as a teen but no glaring character flaws. Someone who got a good education, followed by a good start in the work world through good grades he worked for or through family connections he did nothing to merit. Someone who worked slavishly long hours on Wall Street for a few years, soaking up the "what can we get away with it" mindset from people he saw as mentors and role models. Goals set, time out for a B-School or law school that reinforces the now inculcated masters of the universe identification; then back to Wall Street, moving from investment bank to brokerage and back again, proving his worth to his betters not with caution, but by the daring (and amorality) of his proposals (or, if a lawyer, supporting same).
Rewarded with promotions and bonuses for those ideas and strategies that "worked." Rewarding self with an office dalliance, or two or three (that is, after all, where he spends all his time.) And now, instead of being some higher up's bag carrier, getting used to traveling first class and having a bag carrier of his own, or two or three. Trading up the co-op ladder, selling off the weekend house in unfashionable upstate NY or Massachusetts for one in the Hamptons or on the Vineyard. Opening up an offshore account and maybe a numbered Swiss account prior to ditching the first wife, and maybe the second wife, in favor of the trophy wife, half his age, possibly younger than his children. Strategizing against his competition in the hierarchy; counting the ruination of someone else's chances as a "score."
Buying on margin, selling short, inside trading, taking ever greater risks. Convincing all his former classmates, family and friends to allow him to handle their investments. Going for broke, risking it all on one big idea, one transaction. Winning. Or losing. But buttressed himself by sequestered funds, doing it again, and again. Sequentially stiffing family, friends and former classmates, impervious to the cost to the little people, left behind.....
Is it any wonder that this man (or woman) cares not at all for Everyman or Woman? If he can stiff his family, why should we think he would care if he stiffs the great unwashed?
He is a man with only one agenda -- which is to be Alpha Male or, pitifully, the Alpha Male's right hand man.

LisB,

All due respect:

People like the Clintons and the Kennedy's are quite tight with this group of people. If you aren't ready to ask those people the same questions, you probably aren't ready to ask the Wall Street CEO's. Ditto Obama.

Please don't bring up public service and/or charity. Volunteers that work in homeless shelters are doing real public service -- slaving away in obscurity. Being a Senator isn't public service in the usual sense of the word -- it's comes with tremendous power and perqs.

And please don't talk of charitable contributions. The fact is that many of these people give lots of money away.

I needn't go into GOP personnel because I suspect you are already wise on those people.

I get rather annoyed with people who attribute some great moral agenda or compassion for the less fortunate to FDR, the Kennedys or even LBJ. Remember that Civil Rights legislation was only endorsed by LBJ to keep the whole country from breaking out in race riots. MLK clued him in on that.

C

People with money have problems too. They're just different problems. :-)

Seriously, there are some "good ones". Or ones that are "more good than bad" at least. (I do not believe that any individual is entirely good or entirely bad, really. For that matter, many things or actions we think of as "good" or "bad" are both, or sometimes neither. But that's another bit of philosophy entirely.)

The Old Grouch cited my own personal core concern. I'm no CEO, but I am, shall we say, "fairly comfortable". But I see a slow-building, slow-burning anger that may well explode:

I think we're about on the edge of a real populist revolt. Disparities like we see around us are doubleplusungood for a healthy, stable society.

Something else also worth thinking about here. Consider Microsoft and Bill Gates vs, say, HealthSouth and Richard Scrushy, or Countrywide and Angelo Mozilo. Gates' wealth was at least "more earned" than either of the other two. For all its faults, Microsoft produced (and still produces) something of value, and Gates drove much of that (business strategy wise at least: he had little to do with the actual software). The others created little, and perhaps really only destroyed things. All three were tremendously rewarded, though. This seems ... wrong.