From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Sat Sep 01 2001 - 12:21:00 MDT
On Sat, Sep 01, 2001 at 10:43:48AM -0700, J. R. Molloy wrote:
>
> From: Spike Jones
> > Is there a problem? spike
>
> If there is a problem, it's concentrated more in government (the PC ruling
> class) than in private industry (the working class). Most overpaid bosses are
> in government, starting with the US president, who is paid millions and is
> responsible for no identifiable product.
Are you sure of that?
If I remember correctly, the office of POTUS comes with a pathetic
salary -- something like $140,000 a year. In comparison, the Prime
Minister of GB&NI takes home about GBP 140,000; this is the _average_
salary for the CTO of a tech company in the UK, where most tech
companies are relatively small and their executives are paid less
than their US equivalents. In many other countries the British PM
would be considered badly paid.
There was an incident in 1999 when Bill Clinton nearly had to declare
personal bankruptcy; why do you think he's treading the lecture circuit
so eagerly?
As a general rule of thumb, government salaries are a pittance compared
to their private enterprise equivalents. This gives rise to a problem;
governments can't get (and retain) highly competent staff in a competitive
market, and those they do retain have an incentive to line their own
pockets. The only people who _really_ make money out of government are
the contractors ...
-- Charlie
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