How Roseanne and AIG Are Alike

Remember way back in 2008, when the U.S. economy – in fact the whole world’s economy – was on the verge of irreparable meltdown as a result of ludicrously complicated  investment schemes concocted by an unregulated banking industry? With taxpayer bailouts totaling $182 billion, insurance behemoth American International Group (AIG) became the poster child of financial shenanigans. They eventually were shamed into canceling expensive conferences at luxury resorts, the St Regis in Dana Point CA and the Ritz-Carlton at Half Moon Bay CA. The canceled events were had been incentives for top sales producers.

Headline stories fueling outrage for AIG’s lavish spending didn’t inquire into how the independent agents selling AIG’s boring insurance products felt about having their rewards pulled. Compensation for the high-flying perpetrators of the investment schemes was not affected. No note was taken of the housekeepers or banquet servers or other staff of the resorts and the effect on them of  lost income from the canceled events.

Much news lately about the sudden cancellation of the “Roseanne” TV show after the star’s racist Twitter remark. The show’s namesake will be fine financially, as will the on-air cast. Most of them, presumably, have guaranteed contracts. Not so fortunate, however are the behind-the-scenes workers who lost their wages with no advance warning. Prop makers, set decorators and special effects workers and others expected at least nine more months of regular paychecks from the hit show which the ABC network had recently renewed for another season.

Roseanne Barr posted on Twitter, “I just want to* apologize to the hundreds of people and wonderful writers (all liberal) and talented actors who lost their jobs on my show due to my stupid tweet.” The next day she took the comment down from her Twitter account and blamed ABC for the lost jobs.

* Why do people “want to apologize” or “want to thank” or “want to” whatever else? If they want to, why not just do it without telling us they “want to?”

Thoughts for Memorial Day

Memorial Day began in 1868 as Decoration Day, promoted by General John Logan on behalf of Northern Civil War veterans, designated May 30 as a day for “the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion.”

The day of remembrance became Memorial Day during the Great War – later to become known as World War I – to honor veterans of all the nation’s wars. The commemoration was changed to the last Monday of May in 1971 to conform to the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, passed by Congress in 1968.

Memorial Day is also the unofficial beginning of summer in the U.S.

 

What Harley-Davidson Did with Its Tax Break

Harley-Davidson paid its President and Chief Executive Officer, Matthew S. Levatich, $11.1 million in 2017, a 19% increase from his $9.35 million take the prior year, rewarding him for taking the company’s net income to $522 million, down 25% from 2016’s $692 million. Five years ago, he collected a paltry $3.7 million. A share of H-D stock (HOG) was priced at $69.24 at the end of 2013; $50.88 at the close of 2017, down 27%. ($42.31 on May 25, 2018.)

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The New Gilded Age

Twenty-two-year-old Elvis Presley paid $102,500 for a home in Memphis for his parents and himself. That was in 1957. The purchase price was equivalent to about $915,000 in 2018. Today, Graceland is the second-most-visited house in the country. (First is the White House.) At 10,000 square feet and less than a million dollars, though, Elvis’s estate is almost laughable in the hierarchy of grandiose residences. In Los Angeles’s Bel Air neighborhood, anything less than 30,000 square feet cannot be taken seriously. And a million dollars? Hard Rock Café co-founder Peter Morton recently sold his Malibu home for $110 million.

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