Bankers receiving taxpayer money are complaining that they can’t make do on meager salaries of $500,000 per year. How will they be able to retain talented staff? An article in today’s Sacramento Bee notes that “dozens of California Senate employees have their pay padded by a combined total of several hundred thousand dollars a year through a little-known method not disclosed publicly as salaries.” Although not quite up to banking standards, a spokesperson is quoted as saying “these discretionary funds are used to retain high-caliber staff, who can earn significantly more in the private sector.” 

Well, they’ve all done such a fine job, haven’t they. I mean, the highly paid “talented” bankers and our “high-caliber” legislative staff have been the best that money can buy. Isn’t it time that this fallacy is debunked? What about paying a fair salary to someone who desires to do a good job in and of itself, regardless of pay? There are people in the world who are talented and take pride in the quality of their work. I don’t put in less effort on the job merely because I am paid less than someone else. What would that say about my self esteem if I did? That I can only feel good about myself if I am paid lots of money?

The country needs a good revolution every two-hundred years or so. It is time to test the myth that you can’t get “high-caliber” staff without paying obscene salaries (we’ll test the myth of “too big to fail” in a subsequent blog). Perhaps it is time for another revolution…