Dream camouflages reality's nightmare

David Sherman

Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, an “Alternative asset management firm” juggles more than a trillion dollars. He earns more than $225 million a year, just $100 million short of a million a day, bringing new meaning to “deep pockets.”

He's at the top of the list of CEOs making more than $100 million a year, compiled by the AFL-CIO.

They included Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, formerly known as Google, the new name a metaphor for their control over every letter in the languages of the world. His paycheque is also in the hundreds of millions but the reality is impossible to know because most CEO salaries come with stock options attached. The price of these go up and down like the temperatures in summer and they cash in as much as their gluttony demands.

Stephen Scherr of Hertz Global Holdings, salary was listed at $182 million. Service at Hertz still sucks.

Live Nation Entertainment’s CEO $139 million, Pinterest CEO scores $122 million, etc.

The top paid CEOs’, according to the AFL-CIO, collectively bring in $1.3 billion or a $100 million-plus a month. ut that was yesterday.

This doesn’t include the rotted cherry on top of the sundae -- Elon Musk -- whose board of toadies agreed to his $54 billion annual salary. Billion with a B.

If you’re a sports fan, you might know Nova Scotia’s Sid the Kid Crosby is negotiating what may be his last contract and is expected to land about $14 million a year – a million a month with a couple of million left over for pocket change. Yes, damn it, he’ll have to pay some taxes but with a good accountant, anything is possible.

But Crosby is in another league figuratively and factually compared to baseball’s Shohei Ohtani, of the Los Angeles Dodgers. His latest contract has him earning $700 million spread out over decades to lessen the tax bite and assure future earnings for family, friends, hangers-on and the GDP of Japan.

Major League’s Baseball’s total salary for roster players is $5.1 billion. If you take total salaries of roster players in the NBA, NHL, MLB and the NFL, it tops $55 billion. Billion, with a B.

That doesn’t include $3 billion earned by tennis and golf pros and the $34 billion-plus kicked around by pro soccer players. That’s billion with a B. Nor can we forget the more than $2.7 billion paid to NCAA athletes and the various perks “Friends of the Program” donate, like cars, homes, etc.

Not sure if that includes NiJaree Canady, a woman who just signed to pitch softball for Texas Tech University, for more than $1 million. Softball, the game most of us played before arthritis took us out of the game and we played for joy of the game, as we played all sports, as all or most pro athletes started playing. For fun.

Yes, Canady’s a student athlete and they, like most elite athletes, are now commodities.

Today, though, parents drop thousands as an investment to get their children into elite training schools so they too can grab a chunk of the $55-billion pie.

Of course, for athletes, salary is only part of the deal, the way investments by CEOs bring revenues beyond their salaries.

And, there are endorsements. Basketball great LeBron James is estimated to have cashed in about a billion to hawk stuff. His predecessor, Michael Jordan, is said to be worth more than $3.2 billion. The total estimated income from athlete’s endorsements is $10-$15 billion a year.

But, it’s not all about salary and endorsements for pro athletes. There’s private jet travel, private chefs who design individual diets, first-class health care, the best hotels, adulation, celebrity, bubble gum card portraits and an endless supply of young women, eager to be touched by sports royalty and the attention of hundreds of thousands or millions of a multiplicity of genders watching from stadium seats or arm chairs.

And why forget Hollywood excess. Robert Downey Jr., an excellent actor, "put on the tights" as John Cusack disparagingly put it, to earn $450 million for a series of comic book movies. In '23, Adam Sandler earned $73 million.

But, let’s shift gears to Mark Donovan and his Denver Basic Income Project. Donovan, a businessman, decided during the Pandemic that he had to do something about homelessness. A man with a conscience.

He raised a little more than $9 million – less than many athletes earn in a single season playing games, much less than most CEOs earn telling people what to do -- and divided it among 800 homeless. Some received a lump sum of $12,500, some received two payments of half that amount, some received monthly payments of $1,000 and a control group received $50 a month.

The results, as in other experimental free-income projects, were remarkably positive. People found homes, then jobs, bought banged-up cars to go to work, saw doctors and mostly avoided the customary interactions with police, emergency rooms, courts and jails and began to see a future. Drug addiction and overdoses were reduced.

Donovan’s selflessness to improve the lives of others did just that. Only $12,500 a year was the difference between life and death for many.

It saved local government about $500,000 in health and judicial costs so its profit is measured in dignity, safety, security, quality of life. And basic humanity.

One day, Mr. Donovan decided to sit down with the executives mentioned above and others making less than $100 million as well as the players’ associations of the pro sports leagues.

He asked the CEOs, “could you manage if you made only $10 or $12 million a year? After all, the average wage in the U.S. is about $68,000 and most of you make in a day or a few hours what people work all year to earn. That’s taxed at source in many states while you guys have high-priced accountants and write-offs and off-shore accounts and probably cheat.”

And, he said, there are about 650,000 in the U.S. and another 235,000 homeless people in Canada. They live is misery, in no small part because minimum wage in many parts of the U.S. is slave wages. The wealthiest country in the world starves a large percentage of its population through legislation.

There was grumbling around the table but the CEOs agreed that they could survive on $10 or $12 million a year. Some said they could to sit behind a desk and kiss the ass of shareholders on $2 million a year.

Donovan asked the players’ associations, “Do you remember when playing was fun and you couldn’t wait to get to the rink or field or court for the joy of playing? Do you think you could play for maybe $2 or $3 million, maybe $4 or $5 if you’re the best in the league. That’s around $11,000 a day.

“People are starving, living in cars and tent and sidewalks, getting thrown in jail and you earn more than you probably imagined, need or can even use.

“Remember,” Donovan said, “tennis, golf, football, hockey, basketball, are games. You make people happy playing, you have fun playing. Maybe $300 or $700 million isn’t necessary to throw or catch or hit a ball?

“For $12 billion, a quarter of cretin Musk’s salary, and if you athletes are willing to accept only half a king’s ransom to play, we could end homelessness in the U.S. and Canada. And, that would be a home run or an overtime winner.”

The jocks bitched and mumbled and one worried that he’d only be able to have one Maserati, another feared he’d have only a couple of houses and his coterie of groupies might have to be reduced.

The elite and the bursting bosoms that attended the wedding of the son of India’s richest man -- estimated worth $120 billion, where average salary is $325 U.S. per month -- received $3 million in swag. Free shit no one needed.

But feeling foolish and greedy to take so much out of a country with so little, they distributed their gifts to the needy.

And through the selfless efforts of Donovan and a few dozen like him, homelessness ended. The economy boomed. People had money for essentials and a little disposable income. Homes were built by the thousands, streets were free of the bedraggled, addicted and helpless.

But, I woke up. Donovan and his selfless contemporaries are still hunting donations. Musk is still wanting his $54 billion a year and Ohtani is counting his $700 million.

And one million men, women and children have empty stomachs and no roof over their heads.