I too, think people deserve all the rewards from their work, ideas, labor, etc. This applies to churches, oil barons, investment bankers, lawyers, insurance companies, drug companies and yes, even right wing talk radio guys.

However...Not all transactions are equal. If Gary goes out and charges $150.00 for an hour of entertainment at a NH and does exactly that, its pretty neat and clean.

But what if Gary shows up without his KB and sings over MIDIs for an hour. He's still entertained his audience for an hour, right? What if he shows up and has his whole program vocals and backings pre recorded? He lip syncs for the hour. (Its happened in SW OH not that long ago, lol...) Are we now into an area where we're uncomfortable?

Churches have an extra burden because they accept monies usually under the banner of "charitable giving", so like other Charities, they are held to a different standard than a Corporation is. When compensation packages to the Church hierarchy seems extremely high, questions arise. Why do so many of the Sunday Morning preacher crowd seemed to be attired in nothing but the finest of high end suits?

Oil barons/companies make less profits percentage wise than most people think. My gripe with them isn't with how much money do they make, its the extent to which they will go via lobbying efforts to further tilt the scales in their favor. BP is widely known to have spent millions in lobbying to obtain less regulation, less accountability under the promise they'd behave themselves. Much remains to be known and understood about the Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but I've seen reports coming from BOTH Conservative and Liberal Media that in the end, a part that costs less than $500k to replace had been identified as a likely factor. That puts an awful bad taste in people's mouths.

Investment Bankers, perhaps like Bernie Maddoff, also hold people's fortunes in their hands. I feel bad for people who lose money on the stock market, but too often its poor judgment that bites them in the ass. However, when customers or lending agencies act in good faith and are subsequently harmed by a reckless disregard for their investment, then NO, investment bankers don't deserve humongous paydays just because they figured out a way to game the system.

Lawyers, I really don't have a huge issue with their compensation.

Insurance Companies also make less profit than some people think. I do wonder why they need so much for their administrative and executive level compensation packages. They are not efficient and too often look for loopholes to deny coverage. I remember my law classes and the spirit of the agreement means something. Who has the means to take on a large Health Insurance Co.? Not too many. There's a whole other discussion we could have someday about the ethics of a Corporation making money on other people getting ill. Premiums and Co-Pays go up and up, while the CEO of UHC makes Bill McGuire made $124.8 Million last year.

While we have the best Doctors, Surgeons, Nurses, Testing Equipment, etc. we have arguably, the worst health delivery system of any industrialized country. Salaries like McGuire's wouldn't seem obscene if the Companies weren't nickel and diming "regular people" at the same time.

Big Pharma. Now these cats make some serious money. But let's step back for a moment...

According to Morningstar Financial, United Healthcare had a profit margin of 4.1% in the FY ending August '09. Wellpoint had a PM of 4.0%, the other largest HI companies came in well below that. The sector ranked 87th out of 215 rated by Morningstar.

Beverages were #1, with a PM of 25.9%. Right behind that were healthcare real-estate trusts (firms that are basically the landlords for hospitals and healthcare facilities) and application-software (think Windows). The worst performer was copper, with a profit margin of minus 56.6 percent.

Exxon had a PM of roughly 9%...

Big Pharma had a pm of 16.4%, 7th highest according to MS.

Now, the part I don't like is that while we've had this big battle over healthcare in the last 16 months or so, The Obama Administration cut a deal with big Pharma early on for them to 1) Not fight them on reform 2) to agree to not raise prices and 3) to kick in 800 million towards closing the donut hole for seniors prescription meds. They agreed, and in return they got a promise from this Administration that we would forgo our right to competitively shop for prices. Who does that? The VA system doesn't? No other industrialized countries do it? Shortly thereafter, Pharma announced a re-coding of several cost accounts and a sudden expansion of their R&D costs. They just moved the money around. Obama got played like a cheap fiddle.

I haven't even mentioned the subsidies that many of the industries above get annually from our Gov't. Those subsidies come from our tax revenues.

Ok, I haven't forgotten the talk shows guys. First off they're entertainers. Anyone who gets the bulk of their info on today's issues from Fox or MSNBC or Glen Beck or Thom Hartmann is going down the wrong road.

Ex: About a month ago Fox's Sean Hannity was all upset about how fast large companies were having to write off billions of losses due to the health care thing. Fact is, this involved subsidies (from you and me) that the Gov't. pays to large Companies to provide health care for its employees. For some unknown reason, Uncle Sam would give the ABC Corp. 50 Million to help pay for health insurance. Give it to them. BUT also also them to deduct it from their taxes.

That's right. They were able to write off gifts they received. Know any other industry like that? Nope, me either. So, the companies realizing they weren't going to be able to continue to double dip had to announce some changes to their expected P&L's. Over the next ten years...

So, did the Conservative, fair and balanced voice of Patriotism applaud the Obama Administration for stopping this accounting foolery and getting a huge amount of our hard earned tax dollars back?

No, he spent 20 minutes fear mongering about how the Socialist in the White House was slowly but surely bringing down some of America's greatest corporations.

Same thing with Death Panels. Originally a Republican idea that enhanced the one on one relationship between a patient and their doctor, it was perverted into any number of hideous things its most certainly not.

lest you think I only target Conservatives, some of the talk I've heard aimed at those people in the Tea Party movement is disgusting. They're not all morons, they are very much regular Joe's who are trying to do something for the Country they love. Misguided? Yes, sometimes. Ill-informed? Yes, but some of the crap from the left media is just brutal.

To wrap this up, I think people who provide a good value, are fair and responsible should make as much money as they can. If, on the other hand, there's intentional mis-information, trickery, deception within the narrow definition of the law, then I think they should not earn unlimited sums of money.

Sorry for the length but it was all tied together in my head, you know?

------------------
Bill in Dayton

[This message has been edited by Bill in Dayton (edited 05-22-2010).]