Shades of Hoover and ‘The Babe’
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- February
- 3
As has been widely reported, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri has proposed a law that would limit executive pay for companies taking federal bailout money to no more than what Barack Obama makes as president—$400,000.
McCasskill ,who called the Wall Street chieftans “idiots” for their greedy ways, says limiting their salaries to the level of the nation’s commander-in-chief is hardly unreasonable.
“It’s eight times the median household income in the United States of America,” she said. “I don’t think that sounds like a bad idea.”
Her use of the president’s pay grade is interesting because it harks back to another depression, The Great Depression, when the salary of the greatest baseball player of all time, Babe Ruth, was compared to the salary of one of the worst presidents of all time, Herbert Hoover.
In 1930, the president’s salary was $75,000.
When somebody questioned how the Great Bambino could make $80,0000, or five grand more than the president, Ruth supposedly replied, “I know, but I had a better year than Hoover.”
It’s hard to see how the likes of say, John Thain, the fallen CEO of Merrill Lynch, could possibly have had a better year than Obama.
Besides, our man Thain from Rye-Harrison, can’t hit a curve.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 2:32 pm by Phil Reisman.
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Phil Reisman is a veteran journalist and native of Westchester County. He began his career in 1977 as the head copy boy of a startup New York City newspaper that quickly went belly up. Reisman was not to blame for the newspaper's failure, or so he claims.
One of the great retorts of all time, the Babe’s “I had a better year than he did.” As they say, from the mouths of babes. Many of the “less educated” among us have delivered more cogent lines than our Ivy PhDs. I remember Howard Cossell asking Muhammad Ali how he could claim conscientious- objector status when he was a professional pugilist, Ali answered, in effect, that boxing was a sport, officiated by a referee, Cossell pressed on, asking Ali what he would do if someone came up to him on the street and punched him in the nose. Ali answered: “I would run.” Cossell said: “You’re telling me that the heavyweight champion of the world would run in that instance?” Ali responded: “Anybody crazy enough to punch me in the street is somebody I don’t want nothing to do with.”
What ever happened to the concept of awarding bonuses based on a companies profitability. Despite what people on wall street are saying bonuses are not part of your salary, if they were they would not be called bonuses
I’ve read that Hoover was a brilliant man, and an exceptional administrator.
I’ve also read that Ruth was a drunk and a bully.
I think the recessions/depressions are gonna happen, whether God himself is president.
Maybe Obama can take some “performance enhancing” steroids, and bat us out of this one.
Then we can give him $120 million for the 4 year contract.