How do you like living in an age where government and not the free market is where money is to be made. This is why DC is currently booming – big government isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so many people are jumping on the gravy train. This explains why DC’s unemployment rate is one of the lowest in the nation, not to mention the housing market is going strong (the second-strongest in the nation). Now we are getting this report from the Washington Business Journal that CEOs in Washington DC saw an average pay increase of 37%, while the nationwide average was 5.5%. Here are some of the details:
It found that the 25 top performing D.C.-area companies posted a median increase in shareholder returns of 85 percent, significantly lower than the median for top performing companies nationwide of 98 percent. Yet the CEOs of those local companies got a 37 percent increase in compensation, compared to just a 5.5 percent increase for CEOs of top performing companies nationwide. Local CEO pay hikes were second only to those of Atlanta CEOs, who received a 45 percent bump in compensation.
Make no mistake .. I am not demonizing the wealth earned by these CEOs. However, it is a bit odd that the CEOs surrounding Washington DC – the epicenter of our imperial federal government, ruled by a lover-of-all-things-government – are fairing far better than the rest of the country.
It is a town swarming with people like Fortney “Pete” Stark. I’m sure you’ve heard his quote by now. At a townhall meeting in California he declared, “The federal government yes, can do most anything in this country.” That mentality is pervasive throughout Washington. It is pervasive throughout the people who are making policy, influencing policy, enforcing policy and interpreting policy. Our federal government has managed to takeover entire industries and create laws that are not based on the Constitution but on what they deem to be “fair.” To people like Pete Stark, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank … government exists in order to do things for people, rather than simply protect the people and their inalienable rights. Once the job description for a politician became about redistributing wealth and resources, about promises of goods and services, that is the point when our government’s role changed forever. Who knows, it’s probably too darn late to change it again.
