"Stagehand Scalping" at Carnegie Hall; Where's the Outrage About $400,000 Salaries?

It is a well-known fact that nobody in Congress ever reads, or even skims, any law, and especially not the fine print, it passes until long after it has been enacted into law. It appears the same is just as true for the biggest pillar of support for the Obama administration: America's labor unions, whose liberal vote every election is instrumental to preserving the outflow side of America's welfare state.

Multi-million dollar bonuses for chief executives are scorned these days, but a study released today shows that the financial chieftains already got a noticeable hit in the pocketbook last year. Cash bonuses fell by 20.6 percent between 2007 and 2008, according to Equilar, a company which tracks executive compensation. For S&P 500 companies, that drove overall compensation down by 6.8 percent over the same period, the study found.

One of the world’s most renowned classical pianists walked out of a concert in anger because an audience member was filming him. When he returned to the stage, Krystian Zimerman explained that he had lost contracts with record labels because audience members had already posted films of his performances on YouTube, the video-sharing website. Zimerman, from Poland, who was performing at the Ruhr Piano Festival in Essen, western Germany, spotted someone filming him from a balcony.

Goldman Sachs risked stoking the row over City pay on Wednesday by revealing its bankers were paid an average of $400,000 (£250,000) each last year, a rise of more than $30,000 a head on 2011, reports The Guardian.

No price of labor is to high if you are a supporter of public unions. Here is a case in point: In Hermosa Beach California, Police Chief Steve Johnson and Councilman Howard Fishman defended $100,000 meter maid positions on the grounds “When you outsource, you take away union jobs.” Note that meter maid positions do not require not much more than ability to drive a standard transmission car and have a high school diploma.

By Simon Johnson

In return for the FDIC insuring bank deposits, banks are assessed a regular fee. It's a lot like paying for insurance, actually. And in what seems like a sensible move, the FDIC wants banks engaging in risky behavior to pay a bit more: