Laff Riot

Chronicle Comedy

I would like to applaud the Houston Chronicle for their sense of humor. Today, Saturday, April 15, 2006, a day which already strikes fear and loathing into the hearts of taxpayers, I plop my paper down on my breakfast table and see a headline, on the left, just above the “fold” which reads “Gas jumps 14 cents in one week.” I want to cry as we edge toward $3 a gallon. I finish perusing the top half of page one and flip over to the bottom half and there on the left hand side, just beneath the “fold” is the headline “Exxon’s ex-CEO paid like a Rockefeller” being paid since 1993 $144,573 a DAY! No, not a year, not a week, a DAY! Now I want to puke.
Thank you, Chronicle editors, this juxtaposition of headlines is no coincidence and should be a wake-up call to the gasoline consumers everywhere.
Sadly, this exorbitant overcompensation for top executives of big companies runs rampant. Have they no conscience? Truckers and cab drivers seek other employment since their lives blood is being squeezed out of them while Lee Raymond is salting away a million dollars a week. Limits for maximum compensation for management should be made law. Let’s have a national referendum where voters select the maximum by ballot.
I think the maximum management payment should be no more than the minimum wage times:

10X
100X
1000X

That ought to cover it. Even I could get by on a quarter of a million dollars a week.