Question: How much money is ‘too much’?

(Nov 17, 2007) – Like I was sayin’… you can shave my head, but it won’t cure your baldness.

 I haven’t seen it in a while, but every now and then, one of the Dem candidates talks about those “greedy CEOs” who make so much more money than YOU do.

I brought the topic up the other day at lunch and was shocked at the number of people felt that “some” people make too much money and something needs to be done about it.

In America, do we want or need our government to decide how much is too much?  When I hear that some CEOs earn 400 times the average worker, I ask myself “how do I become a CEO?” and not”what can be done to put a stop that?”.  A couple of people at lunch indicated that people shouldn’t be “allowed” to make that much as it isn’t fair.

 Granted, some CEOs do a terrible job, but is it up to the federal government to step in and ensure the bad CEOs make less?  I am not talking about the corrupt CEOs at Eron, Tyco, and other places, but rather leaders at companies that either lead well or don’t.

And why is this only aimed at CEOs?  Why not actors or sports starts?  Mel Gibson made at least 100 million on “The Passion”, but the guy that brings him his coffee or one of the stunt men probably didn’t make anything like that.  How many millions does Tom Cruise make to act in a move while the person that picks out his clothes for the film makes tens or hundreds of times less?  What about the guy that hands Lebron James a Gatorade?  Shouldn’t he share in the millions?

I believe that we should be able to make what somebody is willing to pay us, regardless of how much more we make than somebody else.  In America for now, you can earn as much as you can without the government stepping in when you make “too much”.  Why would we want to change that?

Incidentally, if you would like to pay me 100 times what I am making now, I can arrange my schedule for interviews….

Smrtas1 freaks out and mows own lawn!

(July 21, 2007) – Ever since going to grad school, I have been hiring a neighborhood teen to mow my lawn.  I typically pay him everytime he comes unless I am not home, in which case we catch up the following week unless he stops by before.

Last weekend he showed up to collect from the week before and I asked if he would be mowing the lawn that weekend since it was getting rather tall.  He said that he would.

 Well seven days later, he still hadn’t come by.  I was talking to a neighbor and found out that the kid’s lawn mower was broken and he was going on vacation this weekend.

So I fire up my lawn mower which hasn’t been used in about a year.  After about 20 minutes of pulling, it finally starts.  It is a mulching mower and gets clogged up about every 3 minutes as the grass is sooooo tall.  After about 30 minutes, I have finished about half of the front yard and it looks terrible due to all the piles of unmulched clipings.

I break down and attach the bag and try to finish the rest of the yard.  The next issue is that the grass is so long, it is clogging before it can get into the bag.  No problem I just empty the bag every half pass of the yard.

To end this story: after having to mow the front yard twice with a bagger just to make it look good, then mowing the back yard, and blowing the clippings off the drive and walk, I am done.  And it only took about 3 hours.  It typically takes about 40 minutes to mow the entire yard… but like I was sayin’….

My First Post

July 20th, 2007 – Well here it is, my first post!  So what happens now?  Millions and Millions of people reading it of course….  Well, at least in my dreams anyway.

 Anyhow, I hope to make this at least a little interesting going forward.  I follow the news regularly, so I hope to post stuff here that you might find interesting along with my opinions and comments.  I try to read up on a lot of current events, but read mostly politics, business, world news, and  anything else that jumps out at me.