Colorful Comparison

Doug_Harris cats22 at STNY.RR.COM
Thu Sep 18 14:03:05 UTC 2008


Nicholas Kristof, known to have a soft spot for
the horrendous problems of distressed nations,
used a reading-pace-arresting comparison in today's
NYT to highlight the "Brobdingnagian paychecks" of
corporate executives that are, he notes, "partly the
result of taxpayer subsidies."
These, he said, "cost taxpayers more than $20 billion a year.
That's enough money to deworm every child in the world, cut maternal
mortality around the globe by two-thirds and also provide iodized salt to
prevent tens of millions of children from suffering mild retardation or
worse. . . ."
--
Whoa!
The executive pay issue _is_ something we should be concerned, and
outraged, about.
So, I guess, is the need for deworming of some children. But ALL of them?
Still, I don't see 'take from the rich and give to the dewormers' ever
becoming a campaign slogan. The comparison, well meaning as Kristoff is,
lacks scale.
cats22 (aka doug)

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