- The CEO pay ratio is now 271-to-1.
According to the Economic Policy Institute’s annual report on executive compensation, released on July 20, chief executives of America’s 350 largest companies made an average of $15.6 million in 2016, or 271 times more than what the typical worker made last year.
The number was slightly lower than it was in 2015, when the average pay was $16.3 million, and the ratio was 286-to-1. And it was even lower than the highest ratio calculated, 376-to-1 in 2000.
But before we pop any champagne corks because of the slightly lower number, let’s recall that in 1989, after eight years of Ronald Reagan in the White House, the ratio was 59-to-1, and in 1965, in the midst of the Vietnam War and civil rights turmoil, it was 20-to-1.
Let’s reflect on those numbers for a moment. Just think about how distorted these ratios are and what they say about our country.
Did somebody say “income inequality”?
[This report appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on July 21, 2017.]
- Smiling
I’ve written in this blog, at least once before, about the positive results of smiling. [Please see “If You’re Getting Older, You May Be Getting Nicer,” published on May 30, 2014.]
But I can’t resist adding one more item about smiling. In a story in The Wall Street Journal in June, a cardiologist named Dr. John Day wrote about a woman, aged 107, whom he met in the small city of Bapan, China. Bapan is known as “Longevity Village” because so many of its people are centenarians (one for every 100 who live there; the average in the U.S. is one in 5,780).
Day asked the 107-year-old woman how she reached her advanced age. Noting that she was always smiling, he asked if she smiled even through the hard times in her life. She replied, “Those are the times in which smiling is most important, don’t you agree?”
Day added the results of a study published in Psychological Science in 2010. It showed that baseball players who smiled in their playing-card photographs lived seven years longer, on average, than those who looked stern.
So, he wrote, “The next time you’re standing in front of a mirror, grin at yourself. Then make that a habit.”
[Dr. Day’s article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on June 24-25, 2017.]
- The Summer of Love
This summer, San Francisco is awash in celebrations of the “Summer of Love,” the name attached to the city’s summer of 1967. Fifty years later, the SF Symphony, the SF Jazz Center, a bunch of local theaters, even the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, have all presented their own take on it.
Most notably, “The Summer of Love Experience,” an exhibit at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, is a vivid display of the music, artwork, and fashions that popped up in San Francisco that summer.
As a happy denizen of San Francisco for the past 12 years, I showed up at the de Young to see the exhibit for myself.
My favorite part of the exhibit was the sometimes outrageous fashions artfully displayed on an array of mannequins. Not surprisingly, they included a healthy representation of denim. Some items were even donated by the Levi’s archives in San Francisco. [Please see the reference to Levi’s in my post, “They’re My Blue Jeans and I’ll Wear Them If I Want To,” published in May.]
Other fashions featured colorful beads, crochet, appliqué, and embroidery, often on silk, velvet, leather, and suede. Maybe it was my favorite part of the exhibit because I’ve donated clothing from the same era to the Chicago History Museum, although my own clothing choices back then were considerably different.
Other highlights in the exhibit were perfectly preserved psychedelic posters featuring rock groups like The Grateful Dead, The Doors, and Moby Grape, along with record album covers and many photographs taken in San Francisco during the summer of 1967. Joan Baez made an appearance as well, notably with her two sisters in a prominently displayed anti-Vietnam War poster. Rock and roll music of the time is the constant background music for the entire exhibit.
In 1967, I may have been vaguely aware of San Francisco’s Summer of Love, but I was totally removed from it. I’d just graduated from law school, and back in Chicago, I was immersed in studying for the Illinois bar exam. I’d also begun to show up in the chambers of Judge Julius J. Hoffman, the federal district judge for whom I’d be a law clerk for the next two years. [Judge Hoffman will be the subject of a future post or two.]
So although the whole country was hearing news stories about the antics of the thousands of hippies who flocked to Haight-Ashbury and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, my focus was on my life in Chicago, with minimal interest in what was happening 2000 miles away. For that reason, much of the exhibit at the de Young was brand-new to me.
The curators of the exhibit clearly chose to emphasize the creativity of the art, fashion, and music of the time. At the same time, the exhibit largely ignores the downside of the Summer of Love—the widespread use of drugs, the unpleasant changes that took place in the quiet neighborhood around Haight-Ashbury, the problems created by the hordes of young people who filled Golden Gate Park.
But I was glad I saw it–twice.
You may decide to come to San Francisco to see this exhibit for yourself.
If you do, please don’t forget: “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.”
susanjustwrites
Susan Just Writes 