According to smartmoney.com, that is the amount of money that the average American will spend in a lifetime if he or she lives to the age of 81.
$2.9 million.
$2,900,000.00
Total average lifetime spending.
Hmmmm.......
This is a figure that makes The Curmudgeon ponderous. For the last few days, since The Blog learned this fact (via this month's Reader's Digest), he has pondered and pondered (to paraphrase Dr. Seuss) until his ponderer was sore.
Because, you see, the average annual salary of the top 20 American corporate CEOs (as of 2008, the most recent figures that The Blog could find reported) was $85 million.
That's $85,000,000.00.
Per year.
Income!
The CEO in the number one slot was Oracle's Lawrence J. Ellison at a whopping $192.92 million. The number 20 slot goes to William R. Berkley of the unimaginatively named W R Berkley company (whoever the fuck that is) at $54.60 million.
Walmart CEO Michael Duke makes $35 million per year. That works out to an average Walmart employees annual wage every hour!
Presidential wannabe Willard "Mitt" Romney made a reported income of $21.6 million last year.
The bottom line is that neither the top CEOs in America or the GOP presidential candidate would get out of bed for the money that the average American (the same CEO's employees) spends in his or her lifetime.
And, BTW.... The President of the United States, the "leader of the free world," since 2001, has made an annual salary of $400,000 plus a $50,000 non-taxable expense account.
Ponderous, man. Truly ponderous.
Gee, I really wonder why said CEOs don't want to have their incomes really taxed like the rest of us. Maybe their employees might actually get a raise to the point they could make ends meet on their income. How fast could the National Debt be paid off? How long would Social Security last? How many teachers would get paid what they are worth?
ReplyDeleteI do believe my ponderer has imploded...