A Billion is the new Million

Those of us in our sixties like to tell ourselves that 60 is the new 50 (or 40 or 35).

Well, maybe, but today’s Oregonian reminded me of another “new.”

Consider three front-page stories:

Lorry I. Lokey, who made his fortune starting the PR-mongering Business Wire, gives $74 million to the University of Oregon, bringing his total gifts to the university to $132 million in the last four years.

Let’s write that in its full glory $132,000 times 1000.

Presumably Lokey has kept enough to pay for his room and board.

Moving right along, Danaher Corporation of Washington, D.C. pays $2.8 billion (that’s with a “B”) to buy Oregon technology icon Tektronix Inc.

Let’s write THAT out in full: $2.8 million times 1000.

Finally (and we still are on the front page of today’s paper) the estimated cost to build a new bridge (and improved approaches to it) over the Columbia River is $4 billion. That is 4,000 times $1 million. (Have you ever sat down to count to 4000? Try it. If you count by seconds, it will take you better than an hour. In other words, BOOOR-rinnnng.)

Is anyone blinking at these numbers? (Don't get me started on what each minute of America's Democracy-building presence in Iraq costs. It is shaping up to be a trillion-dollar war. $1,000,000,000,000. That's a million millions.)

I, for one, am having trouble wrapping my brain around bridges that cost $4,000,000,000 and people who can write checks for $132,000,000 to a university, as worthy as that may be.

Sixty may be the new 50 or 40, but I’m stuck in an era when a million bucks was a lot of money. Now it’s pocket change.

What's it all about?

I didn’t want to let days pass without commenting on “Fanboy’s” thoughts about my post regarding Intel CEO Paul Otellini’s 2006 compensation of $6.18 million.

I had estimated the amount made him “worth” 123.6 teachers.

Fanboy first justified Otellini’s pay by noting that he leads Intel’s 95,000 employees and guides the corporation’s worldwide influence. “Intel's products form the backbone of virtually every industry that has anything to do with technology - industries that you and I depend on daily for information, communication, entertainment, transportation, financial transactions, etc.”

By that standard, what should we be paying the CEO of the United States: George W. Bush, or more realistically, Dick Cheney?

For the record, and comparison, Bush makes $400,000; Cheney makes $208,100. Both get substantial expense accounts, health coverage and room and board for themselves and their spouses.

They manage. Are they "worth it"? Let's not go there....

Fanboy then says, “The average teacher has far less influence, far less experience, and far less responsibility than Intel's CEO.”

Note the word “average,” whatever that means. I consider myself an “average” teacher (to the extent that any teacher can be considered
average”), but I’m told I’ve had a share of influence on my students. And as experienced as I am, each day holds a new experience, as I’m sure Mr. Otellini would agree.

As I teacher, I see my responsibilities as preparing my students for life. In a sense, if they fail, I fail. No small responsibility.

And what about success? I asked in my original post: How much responsibility do teachers have for Mr. Otellini’s? What part of his pay does he (or any of us) derive from the efforts of our teachers, or for that matter, the teachers of Intel’s employees?

Of course there are several “above average” teachers who have had a much greater influence than Mr. Otellini or Intel or any of us will ever have.

Christ, Thoreau, Gandhi, Sister Theresa, the Buddha and St. Francis are just a few of the legendary ones. All of them, by the way, chose poverty over wealth in order to discover and share vast truths that eclipse Otellini’s and Intel processors.

Fanboy’s quantitative, bottom-line approach ignores, as I confess I did, a larger question: What’s it all about?

Money? Fame? A fourth house — on the Riviera or in Aspen? A yacht? A third Ferrari stashed in a multi-car garage?

Or is it about a walk in the woods, freedom, a well of potable water, a child’s life, or the Sermon on the Mount?

Intel CEO "worth" 123.6 teachers

Here's today's Red Electric episode on "This American Life."

Today's Oregonian brings news that Intel's CEO Paul Otellini was "penalized" monetarily last year for the company's poor financial performance and for not meeting goals. In 2006, net income for Intel was down 42 percent over 2005.

Being "penalized" meant that in 2206 Otellini eked by on a mere $6.18 million in compensation. The AP story demonstrates the utter cruelty of Intel's decision by comparing Otellini's pittance to the $16.1 million raked in by CEO Hector Ruiz of Advanced Micro Devices.

The connection? AMD is Intel's chief rival.

Oh.

Now for the real comparison beyond the corporate bubble of competitive CEO "worth."

If you take Otellini's pauper's salary and divide it by $50,000, the wage a school district might pay a moderately experienced school teacher, you discover that Otellini, by American society's twisted market standard, is "worth" 123.6 teachers. Count slowly to 123 to get a full sense of the number. "One teacher...two teacher...etc."

Consider that 123 teachers are probably enough to staff five or six neighborhood elementary schools in Portland. You know, just like the ones the Portland School District has been closing.

Do the numbers on Ruiz's grotesque AMD compensation and you could probably throw in teachers for a couple of middle schools and a high school, as well as custodians to clean up after the kids.

Meanwhile, back at Intel and AMD, as they crunch the performance numbers and compare salaries, do Otellini, Ruiz and their compensation committee members ever weigh the debt—educational or financial—they owe teachers who helped them in their own lives?

One more note: Deep in The Oregonian story we get one more insight into Intel: Last September Intel's executives, while wringing their hands over up-coming compensation "penalties," announced they were eliminating 10,500 jobs world-wide.

I've raised this before, but it bears repeating: Let's hope that one day (soon!) folks will look back at this time as a shameful aberration—that they will have ensured that such greed and inequity will never happen again.