News.com.au has a story on the multi-million dollar pay rises given to some of the execs at Macquarie Bank recently:
The bank's chief executive, Allan Moss, now pockets $18.5million – a $6million hike on the previous year – and executive Nicholas Moore takes home $18.2million, up from $11.4million, while property chief Bill Moss is paid $15.5million – a handsome $10million pay rise.
$18.5 million dollars… Damn, that's a lot of money. I'm sure these people worked hard to get where they are, and continue to work hard, but is anyone really worth $18.5 million dollars a year? (Or even US$32 million, the amount the CEO of Merrill Lynch gets paid.) I don't have any information on what these people do with their money, but I'd suspect it would be to expand their property investments, buy a new Mercedes E-class, oh, and maybe a BMW 7-series too – basically, spend it on themselves.
I'm all for making money, living comfortably, etc, but in my view, that amount of money is just excessive (yes, I know there are plenty of people that earn much, much more). If you're spending $9 million a year (when you take out taxes) to live, then there's something seriously wrong with your lifestyle. Even if you're not spending it, what's the point of keeping it in properties/shares/trusts, when it could do so much more for plenty of other people that don't have homes and can't feed themselves? Calling in the poverty line may be cliche, but it's true. You have a handful of people earning absolutely obscene amounts of money (which most of us will never, ever earn in our entire lifetimes), and a whole, absolutely frickin' huge mass of people living below the "poverty line" – some without running water and electricity!
Why don't these people (or the companies paying out these amounts of money) sacrifice even a small percentage of their pay to help others out? With a profit of $823 million, spending $1 million isn't exactly going to hurt the company. I bet the feeling of helping someone (let alone a community) out, by feeding them, educating them, or even building infrastructure far outweighs the cheap (and short) thrill they might get from buying that brand new Mercedes or house in Rose Bay.
It's sad, really.
