Power to the Proletariat

Oh, Keith is not going to like that title.

I just listened to a university statistics professor give a brilliant lecture on innumeracy in the United States and now I’m all fired up. He talked about Americans inability to comprehend large numbers, even in ordinary life settings. One of his examples was salary discrepancies. We all know some careers make a lot of money and we understand other job choices reap smaller financial reward. Yet, have you ever crunched the numbers and considered how far apart these numbers really are? Take professional athletes for example. According to Sports Illustrated “The Fortunate 50”,Tiger Woods earned $128,000,000 in 2008. Contrast that with numbers from the Chronicle of Higher Education which reports that the average associate professor at a baccalaureate university earns $87,000 per year. What do those few extra zeros really mean? It means that the average college professor would have to work 1,471 years to earn what Tiger Woods earned in one year. One thousand, four hundred, seventy-one years! Now I concede that Tiger Woods is a unique situation in professional sports. He earns more than twice that of the #2 ranked top-earning athlete (Phil Mickelson, by the way). So, let’s drop down a few notches to the #6 earning athlete, Alex Rodriguez. A Rod earned $35,000,000 in 2008. Your average medical oncologist earnings max out at an average of $455,000 per year. So today, in this country, A Rod will earn in one year what it takes a doctor fighting cancer 77 years to earn. It is feasible that an oncologist would work his entire life and not earn what Rodriguez earned in 2008 alone. And how about public school teachers? In Utah, the average school teacher with a master’s degree earns $32,000 per year (let's all groan together). Dale Earnhardt Jr earned $27,000,000. A Utah school teacher would have to work 844 years to earn Junior’s 2008 paycheck. To review:

Tiger Woods 1 year earning = University professor 1,471 years work
Alex Rodriguez 1 year earning = Medical oncologist 77 years work
Dale Earnhardt Jr 1 year earning = Utah school teacher 844 years work

Happily pro-athletes are not the only benefactors of our pay-scale lunacy. Forbes.com ranks highest paid CEOs. Mark Papa of EOG Resources was compensated $90,000,000 in 2008. It would take your average lawyer 796 years to achieve that single amount, an oncologist, 198 years.

Now I fully support the concept of giving the people what they want and charging what you can for it. I understand that NASCAR, the Superbowl, and the World Series are part of what makes America great. But I wonder if the dude screaming insults at Jeff Gordon realizes just how much more money that boy pulls than the local EMT or cancer researcher. Do we really think that Ben Roethlisberger should earn $25,000,000 in one year when your city fireman, who would risk his life for you, earns roughly $50,000. (It will take the fireman 500 years to earn $25,000,000.) As a people, we gotta get our priorities back in order.

Another example of innumeracy involves wealthy philanthropists.

Take the Walton family (founders and owners of Walmart) for example. They have received accolades for contributing over $1,400,000,000 (that's 1.4 billion dollars!) to various educational charities between 2003-2007. This sounds impressive, worthy of salutations, glory, laud and honor until you consider their actual net worth of $82,500,000,000 (that's 82.5 billion dollars!). In reality, their donation of 1.4 million dollars is less than 2% of their net worth. That is equivalent to the city fireman donating $825 to charity over the course of 4 years, or $206 per year. Not sure a parade is warranted at 2% contribution levels.

Next time I hear sports commentators gushing over a charitable act by LeBron James ($40,000,000 per annum) or some CNN reporter praising Ray Irani of Occidental Petroleum ($223,000,000 in 2009) for building a school in Beirut, I’m going to throw my shoe at the television set. Numerically speaking, they are being applauded for dropping a nickel in the March of Dimes canister.