Mall is crowded. Are you getting a good deal online when you can’t see and touch the item? Who can use your money more–the CEO of a large corporation or your neighbors? Think about it. Then celebrate Small Business Saturday and shop at your neighbor-owned local stores. It’s good for them, for you, for your community, and even for the environment!
Tag Archive for CEO
Privacy and the Smoking Gun
I was so anxious to give you the information about Facebook yesterday, that I forgot to post a “Thursday Thought” quote. So I’ll do it today. I think this one is appropriate:
“Privacy is dead, and social media hold the smoking gun.” — Pete Cashmore, Mashable CEO
A High-Flying Job–Seeking Applicants
Here’s a job for an adventurous soul: astronaut. NASA is seeking people to “person” the next generation of space ships. If this sounds like a job for you–even though it pays far less than what you’d get as a CEO of a corporation–check out the benefits and requirements at http://www.scribd.com/doc/72816419/Astronaut-Job.
Applications are supposedly available right now, but when I tried to get the link for you none of them worked. I’m sure if you simply called the Lyndon B.Johnson Space Center and asked for an application for job #JS12A0001 they’d be more than happy to send you one….
So, my job makes me worthless?
Recent data made me feel pretty worthless. I’ve been a teacher, receptionist, writer, poet, editor, and a few other things in my life. I thought that each of these jobs had value, because they filled needs in society.
I just didn’t realize how little value they held. According to the data gathered by the AFL-CIO, the average CEO makes $37,000 per DAY, more than the average worker makes in a YEAR. That’s $7,000 per HOUR, or 350 times what the average worker makes. And that’s what the data-gatherers call “average worker,” who is someone making $20 per hour, therefore likely a union-member. Where does that put the non-union workers making minimum wage or less?
All my life I’ve felt that any work, any job, has worth and dignity. I don’t like the idea that people who are not CEOs but have great responsibility (President of the U.S., teachers, fire, police, medical professionals, those who keep our buildings clean and sanitary, those who care for our children–anyone with a job that serves others) are valued so much less than the head of a corporation. And I don’t like the death of the American dream, that a person who works hard won’t end up in poverty but will succeed.
Practically speaking, not everyone can make $7,000 per hour. The question is, should anyone be making that much while others work hard yet struggle to feed their families.
I know some of my readers are thinking that my attitude sounds a bit Communistic. I look at it as going farther back into history, to the time of the Disciples, who followed their Leader’s teachings by caring for each other and working toward the common good.
Walgreens, Say it Ain’t So!
I’ve been happy with my friendly local Walgreens. It’s near-by, I get some good deals on their sales, and the people there are friendly. Now I learn that they’re taking their Medicare/Medicaid earnings (masking up 1/4 of their income) and my dollars and fleeing the scene. They’re one of the latest companies to take advantage of “tax inversion.” That is, they’ll not touch our familiar Walgreens stores but move their corporate headquarters to a tax-haven, a place that allows them to avoid paying U.S. tax on the U.S. money we gave them. It’s a nice little loophole for them and other corporations, but it cheats our economy out of funds that pay for our government, military, health, safety, and safety nets.
Read more in the Chicago Sun-Times article “Walgreens: The tax-dodger on the corner.”
If this bothers you, inform Walgreens CEO and President Gregory Wassen. Sign the petition at the Credo Mobilize site. If enough Walgreens custormers let him know of our disapproval, he may very well calculate how many customers–and how much financial loss–he’ll face and decide to do the right thing.
Guest Blog: Wages & the Reality of Farming
Two weeks ago, the Old Testament section that was read at Mass was very striking in light of some of the things we are hearing from the Corporate side in recent news. The reading was powerful, as read at Mass, but my translation is slightly different and not as strong. However, it talked about the powerful laughing about how they will own all the people and even sell their refuse for profit. The final line was, “The Lord said, I will never forget what they have done.”
When I was listening to that reading, it brought to mind CEO’s who recently have been bragging that they pay the lowest wages they are allowed to (including less than minimum for tipped workers), and absolutely will never offer benefits to their low-wage workers–that they would make everyone part time in preference to providing health insurance. But it also called to mind the subsidies that go to the agribusinesses, while masquerading as “saving the family farm”. (Way back when I was a little girl we were farmers–the family farm of the time was still 40 to 100 acres. My father campaigned against farm subsidies, because he said they only go to the big farms, and he said they were designed to do away with the small family farm–that was nearly 60 years ago). There is a recent study that shows there are many, many farms still operated by “family farmers” and only a few corporate giants–but the subsidies mainly go to the few corporate giants–the Monsantos, ConAgras, Tyson Foods. The study included this paragraph:
“The reality is that farming itself is generally a terrible business. There’s much more—and much easier—money to be made by selling farmers the raw materials of their trade—like seeds, fertilizer, or livestock feed. And there’s also plenty of money in buying farmers’ output cheap (say, corn or hogs) and selling it dear (as, say, pork chops or high-fructose corn syrup). In his excellent 2004 book Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization, Richard Manning pungently describes the situation:
A farm scholar once asked an agribusiness executive when his corporation would simply take over the farms. The exec said that it would be dumb for the corporation to do so, in that it is not free to exploit its employees to the degree that farmers are willing to exploit themselves.”
Theresa Rieve