Forbes just reported that Oprah Winfrey made $275 million last year.
I admire people that can command big bucks; I understand supply and demand. But the Democrats in Washington want to cap compensation. They want to cherry pick their targets and stand in judgment of how much they’re worth.
If they decide to go down this slipperiest of slopes, they ought to begin at the top. Cap Oprah at $2 million. But they won’t go after entertainers or media moguls - they’re Democrats. They’ll go after the evil titans of industry who the media has painted as greedy and whose jobs the politicians could not do or even understand.
I can just see some bureaucrat deciding that Steven Spielberg is worth $150 million/year, but the CEO of some business isn’t worth $1.5 million. It’s all bound to blowup in their faces because the politicians think win-lose: if you get a bigger slice of the pie, my piece will be smaller. They slept through ECON 101 when the professor explained the win-win of creating wealth – making a new pie or an existing pie bigger.
I personally don’t think Angelina Jolie is worth $27 million/year just because she was born pretty. Madonna ($110 million) is washed up, as is David Letterman ($45 million). Bruce Springsteen ($70 million) has always had more nerve than talent.
But they are worth what they get. Let the market judge what someone is worth, not some pinhead with a grudge in Washington.
Here's where your logic breaks down: Oprah, Angelina, Springsteen, etc. make their money because the market HAS judged them. People choose to watch their shows, their movies, buy their albums, buy tickets to their concerts, etc.
ReplyDeleteWhatever you think of Springsteen's talent, the numbers show that the market has voted, and you are outvoted.
That's as it should be.
That's a little different than the CEO of a failing corporation getting a golden parachute approved by cronies he appointed to the board of directors. That's not the free market.