One simple layoff could save 200 jobs

It's connect-the-dots time.

Earlier this year we learned that Bank of America CEO Brian T. Moynihan received an annual compensation (pay plus bonus) of $10 million.

On Monday we learned that Moynihan’s bank will be laying off “at least” 30,000 employees over the next two and a half years.

Why is a CEO paid $10 million to run a bank that is forced to lay off thousands of workers?

Why not lay him off and use the $10 million savings to keep 200 workers paid $50,000 a year?

My guess is that the bank could make a few other executive bonus cuts as well to keep on-line workers on the job.

And how many corporate jets does the bank have in its hangers? How many houses does Mr. Moynihan own?

By the way, numbers don’t always illustrate their significance. Let’s do this visually. Here is what $10,000,000 will get you.

One CEO symbolized by...

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or 200 workers, paid $50,000 symbolized by...

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Got it?

Now tell me that pay inequity doesn’t cause unemployment.

And don't get me started on hedge fund managers.

Moynihan is pauper compared to hedge fund manager John Paulson, who earned a record $4.9 billion last year. That's 490 times what Moynihan made.

Oh, and these hedge fund managers pay their taxes at 15 percent. I still can't figure out what they do besides move money around electronically. Big deal.

Visualizing billions

Brother-in-law Eric Moskowitz, who teaches math in New Zealand, has added THIS to the discussion about John Paulson, the hedge fund manager, and his 2007 $3.7 billion (with a "b") pay.

Options for a Hedge Hog

Ever since writing about John Paulson, the hedge fund manager who made $3.7 billion (with a “b”) last year, I’ve been noticing how $3 billion or $4 billion gets mentioned in the news.

Every time I see the number, I think, “Hey, that’s about what Paulson made last year!”

So today the $3 billion number cropped up not once but twice in the front section of The Oregonian. No, it wasn’t in the front page stories headlined “Confessed killer’s words set him free,” “DA says DNA links suspect to Wilberger,” or “Hey, Kids! It’s good to jump off the bed.” (And they call this a NEWSpaper?)

No, the first mention of $3 billion was on page A5. Headline: “Older people’s memory problems tied to incontinence drugs.” Now there’s news a few million of us can use. It's good news for me, I guess. At least I know my memory problems — I have a few — don’t result from incontinence drugs — yet.

So here’s the $3 billion reference: “U.S. sales of prescription drugs to treat urinary problems topped $3 billion in 2007, according to IMS Health, which tracks drug sales.” The story goes on to say that bladder control is a problem for about one in 10 people age 65 or older.

There you have it — Paulson could keep an entire generation out of diapers and still have $700 million left over for his own modest needs (more on those later).

Second reference, page A7 (If I ran the Oregonian’s, this one would easily bump anything the editors put on today’s front page). Headline, “Study: 300,000 veterans suffer war-related mental problems.” Here’s where Paulson’s $3.7 billion annual take might help. Third paragraph: “Beyond the personal trauma experienced by these (300,000 returning) troops, the problems are costing the country $3.1 billion a year in medical care, lost productivity and suicide, (the) RAND (corp.) estimates.

Paulson, who contributes regularly to hawkish Republican candidates, could pick up those costs and still have $600 million left over.

How about it John? How about helping the traumatized casualties from W's oil war?

Or perhaps you have something better to do with $3.1 billion.

Nosing around on the web last night, I got a sense of what that might be.

This from a 2005 New York Times story about the super-rich snapping up mansions on Manhattan:

“Another mansion with a new owner and a renovation plan is the 20,000-square-foot former Town Club on East 86th Street, which was sold last February for $14.7 million to John Paulson, a money manager. The property has a swimming pool in the basement and portraits of the 12 Caesars overlooking the stairway in the main hall, according to Mr. Pennoyer, who was consulted on the renovation.

“Paula Del Nunzio, the broker at Brown Harris Stevens who sold the mansion, said the family plans to keep the swimming pool. She wasn't sure about the Caesars, which have frames decorated with swags and oxen heads.”

I could find no follow-up story about how Paulson, no doubt soaking in his basement swimming pool, made the tough decision about whether to get rid of the Caesars, swags and oxen heads, but I’m sure he did the right thing — Caesar-wise.

The Annals of Inequity: The $3.7 billion man

Since Senators McCain and Clinton seem so concerned about elitism these days, they might direct their attentions to a front page story in Wednesday's New York Times about hedge fund manager John Paulson, who last year took home $3.7 billion.

In other words, Mr. Paulson made as much as 3,700 people earning $1,000,000 last year.

Let’s write Mr. Paulson’s wages out in long form — $3,700,000,000.

The senators might want to know how Mr. Paulson’s pay compares with that of ordinary, non-elitist Americans. Later in the Times story we learn that the median American family earned $60,500 last year.

Do the math.

In this economy, in the America of today, Mr. Paulson was “worth” 61,500 times what the median family was worth. Simply put, one man made as much as 61,500 families did last year.

Here’s another comparison. Last year it cost about $600 million to run the entire Portland Public School district. With Mr. Paulson’s salary for one year, we could run the school district here for six years.

What is wrong with this picture?

If you look at poverty in this country, to say nothing of poverty around the world, Mr. Paulson’s greed — let’s call it what it is — is shameful.

Of course he isn’t alone. The same story notes that to make the list of the top 25 in hedge fund pay, a manager had to make at least $360 million last year. Just so we don’t lose sight of what that number means relative to median family income, $360 million is roughly 6,000 times what the median American family made.

We see so many stories about grotesque inequity in America that we are in danger of becoming jaded. We shrug it all off. Some even try to justify it: Isn’t this the American way, this drive to “success”? Why not celebrate this man’s riches?

For whatever reason, we seem to have given up on a just and fair society.

We do so at our peril.

If we embrace the value of greed and celebrate the greedy, we will become a greedy people.

Moreover, such vast sums undermine our system of government. Money like this corrupts. One reason we are unable to right the wrong of gross inequity is that elected officials who could do something about it rely on the self-aggrandizing super-rich to stay in office.

That our economy is controlled by the John Paulsons, by executives driven isolated from the needs of others explains much about our present predicament of falling wages. Of crumbling infrastructure, failing schools and a sick health care system.

Instead of serving the greater good, the hyper-wealthy seem to be in business for yachts, jewels, mansions, lavish parties and Park Avenue apartments.

If they continue to damn the rest of the world, one day they may find that they are part of the world they have damned, that for all their riches, they have damned themselves.