Ahhh! The Good Life. Right?

It always happens this way. I plan to write about one thing and then something else crops up. Today I was going to talk about Afghanistan and the middle-east. Okay, well maybe an other day. Today in the N.Y.Times there's an article that is titled "We knew they got raises. But this?" It goes on to state that the CEOs of 200 large companies got a whopping 23% increase in wages in 2010 over 2009. That's nearly a quarter of what they made in 2009. Cash bonuses jumped by 38%. Now folks we're not talking about somebody who hit the daily number for a couple of hundred smackers, we're talking about the giant jackpot, multi-million dollar lottery. You can bet these guys don't bother buying lottery tickets though. Huh. or even Harrumph. These folks are winning these outrageous sums annually. Now you may thing that it's only a reflection of how well their companies are doing and you'd be right. You might think that all employees in those companies are doing equally well. Now there you'd be somewhat wrong. Actually only top executives are seeing any improvement in wages. In fact those companies, for the most part, haven't even begun to rehire folks that were layed off  because of the recession. And those who were kept on had to, in many cases, take a reduction in pay, which hasn't been returned. If only these few were the folks that were buying the products that those companies manufacture, in sufficient quantities, to rehire those folks that were layed off. if only. Unfortunately these CEOs likely don't buy their own companies products at all, preferring something far more expensive instead. But then that's not why they were hired. They were hired to make money for the investors. By not having to pay their employees as much, the company is making more money. Who said the economy wasn't doing well? Who said the recession isn't over? High end imports are selling like hotcakes.