(dear everyone -- please read the following with extreme sarcasm, I don't want
to start a flame war)
Dear Mr. Devine, It has come to our attention that you seem to feel that the
worker who lost a hand and who has contracted asbestosis has been slighted in
favor of the CEO of the utility in question. We feel your, er, world view is
skewed and leptokurtic and that your opinion has a severe case of kurtosis.
While the worker lost his hand, the CEO was suffering the extreme pains of
trying to get workers stupid enough to lose their hands to do their jobs. The
CEO dealt with extremely low quality laborers who did not appreciate the CEO's
hands in feeding them. This caused so much stress that the CEO was forced to
consume vast quantities of martinis, dry. This cause such heartburn that the
CEO has spent a small fortune on tums and other medications. We here at the
WSJ feel that this is much worse than asbestosis. AFter all, the worker isn't
any good any more anyhow with only one hand, and who the hell could enjoy
living on $681 a month? He is lucky, the asbestosis will remove him from his
vail of tears fairly quickly, while the CEO will continue to suffer with the
heartburn caused him by lazy, ungrateful, clumsy laborers. His large stipend
will allow him to live in the lap of luxury, but he will be in therapy for the
rest of his life dealing with the memories of the working class. Sincerely,
editor, WSJ
(sarcastically yours, maggie coleman)
Jim Devine wrote:
> from SLATE:
> >Hats off to the [Wall Street JOURNAL] for rubbing its readers' noses in a
> >dirty little business secret: Perhaps worse than the income gap between
> >worker and king bees is the pension gap between them. The story starts
> >with a contrast/compare between a worker and
> >the CEO at a Florida utility. While both lost their jobs when the outfit
> >was taken over last year, the worker, who has asbestosis and lost most of
> >a hand in an on the job accident, got a $22,968 severance check, but has
> >to wait three more years to draw his pension of $681 a month, while the
> >CEO got a $15.8 million severance check and additionally immediately
> >begins receiving a $69, 070-a-month pension. But it's the Journal's
> >graphic that really sizzles: According to it, many companies spend a huge
> >amount of their total pension dollars on their executives, who ordinarily
> >make up a tiny percentage of their work force. May Dept. Stores for
> >instance, spends
> >almost 20 percent of all its pension monies on its execs, Hormel 11
> >percent, and Motorola 8.7 percent.
>
> Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
