Stan Geiger

Lessons Not Learned

I don’t know what the Dow is doing today, but last week it closed at over 10,000. This bull-run has been the biggest since the 1930s, they say. The question looms: Is this run-up in the Dow justified? I’d have to say no, it is not.

Corporations have propped up the numbers by slashing payrolls. Millions have been rendered unemployed. Millions of others are experiencing pay freezes---if not pay cuts. Corporate management---as usual---is looking short term. Employees are also customers. Cutting payrolls helps the financials in the near term, but how are businesses to prosper in the long term if millions of people in the world’s biggest economy have no money to spend?

In the midst of this environment, as millions of people struggle and in some cases suffer, the “best and brightest” are doing quite well. I saw a report that said a record amount of executive compensation is expected this year, some $140 billion in total. Never mind the fact that it was the “best and brightest” that drove us off the cliff in the first place.

We just can’t seem to learn the lesson. In the immediate wake of near economic collapse, we are right back to business as usual.

“More regulations!” the politicians scream. Really, is that what we need? We’ve got regulations up the kazoo now. We don’t need more regulations; we need people running businesses that have a little bit of sense and at least a wee bit of character.

The TV show ’30 Rock’ took a good look at the issue this past week. The big boss got his big bonus while low-wage pages were cheated out of overtime pay. Such is the attitude in America these days. The “best and brightest,” by virtue of nothing more than station in life, are entitled to great riches.

I’m sick to death of the “best and brightest” argument. That’s the one that says nobody on the planet can do the job of a single individual being compensated at a level beyond all reason. And it doesn’t stop with corporate executives. You hear the argument a lot in education.

A few years ago, a Tulsa World reporter got into how much then-president of Tulsa Community College, Dean VanTrease, was getting paid. His total compensation package hovered around a quarter of a million dollars a year. He was reportedly paid more than any educator in the state outside of the presidents of OU and OSU. The justification offered by the regents was that VanTrease was irreplaceable; he was the greatest juco president in the history of mankind. They had to pay him all that money so he wouldn’t quit.

I’ve seen no reports on how much VanTrease’s handpicked successor, Tom McKeon, is being paid these days. I shudder to think. But, hey, he is one of the deserving; he’s one of the “best and brightest.” The college can’t survive without him.

Boren at OU and Hargis at OSU are deserving of marvelous things. They are deserving of base salaries that put them in the top one percent. They deserve free everything on top of that, from cell phones to houses to cars to private jets. Hey, they are among the “best and brightest.” The universities that employee them would collapse in their absence.

A few years back, Tulsa Public Schools hired a new superintendent. He was given a four-year deal worth over a million dollars. This member of the “best and brightest” class sucked so badly he was chased off the job after two years. Of course, he was given $400,000 on his way out the door.

The argument extends to even the lowly schoolteacher. If we don’t pay more, the “best and brightest” will leave the state. And what empirical evidence, pray tell, suggests that we should be at all concerned about any of our public schoolteachers leaving the state? All the data I’ve seen suggests that we should be happy when a public schoolteacher in this state announces a move.

Then there are those fabulous coaches.

I read a report not long ago that said OSU’s basketball coach was given an annual pay hike of $400,000. Prior to the raise, he was making a million dollars a year---plus perks. He’d been on the job for a whole year, and he got a raise the size of which exceeds 10 year’s pay for an average citizen.

Oh, how silly of me to make that comment. Average citizens aren’t basketball coaches. Being a basketball coach requires unheard of skills, right?

Hell, give me $1.4 million. I’ll spend a few months yelling at players for missing shots and yelling at referees for making bad calls. After that, fire me. Like I would give a flyin’ fart in a windstorm.

There is this football coach up the road in Norman. His name is Bob Stoops. Coming into this year, he was handed a $3 million bonus. His annual salary, according to reports, is something around $3 million---plus perks. During his 10-year tenure, Stoops has to have pocketed something on the order of $25 million in cash alone.

He coaches the mighty Boomers. He dwells among the deserving. But what has he actually done? You may feel free to correct me if I land wrong on any particular point, but let’s run the record.

OU just lost to Texas. That marks the fourth time in five years. The last four times OU has left Norman for games, it has lost. The last five times OU has made it into BCS bowls, it has lost. The last three times OU has gone to a national title game, it has lost. OU, during Stoops’ tenure, has amassed a record of 4-9 in games decided by three points or less.

Wins? Sure, wins against lesser teams have been plentiful. But when it has come to nut-cuttin’ time, the Boomers have come up short under Coach Stoops.

But, OMG, if Bob Stoops quit, the world would come to an end. OU football would disappear from the earth. Nobody else could possibly do the job he’s done. So let’s just keep reaching into the tax coffers and handing him millions upon millions of dollars. He’s one of the deserving; he’s got the job title.

We’ve got to get over this idol worship, people. If we are to ever have a healthy economy again, we have to adapt an attitude that says reasonable pay for the job being done. That means reducing pay for the people riding the surfboards at the top of the wave and increasing pay for the “peons.”

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