How would you live on $500,000 a year?
Wall Street and financial firms argue that limiting executive pay to $500,000 is unfair. (PHOTO CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES)
From CNN's Jack Cafferty:
So this week President Obama said executives at companies that get bailout money will not be allowed to earn more than $500,000 per year. Poor things. And if the companies want to pay them more than that, it has to be in the form of stock that cannot be sold until the loans are repaid to the federal government.
The Wall Street and financial firms argue that is unfair. They say talented executives will leave for greener pastures and fatter paychecks at companies that don't take bailout money. Maybe. We'll have to see how many of those are still around if and when this stimulus package gets through Congress. And at this moment that's far from a sure thing either.
But I digress. Back to how to make it on $500 grand a year. Cancel the country club membership? Sell the yacht and the vacation home - homes. Maybe have junior apply somewhere besides the Ivy League where college goes for upwards of $60 grand a year. List the Hummer and the all-terrain vehicles on E-Bay. Maybe check into the cost of a membership in Costco. It's not going to be easy.
Here’s my question to you: How would your life change if you were forced to live on $500,000 a year?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Can government head off depression?
A man waiting at a breadline in San Francisco during the Winter of 1933. (PHOTO CREDIT: DOROTHEA LANGE/NATIONAL ARCHIVES/NEWSMAKERS)
From CNN's Jack Cafferty:
The U.S. economy is in its worst shape since the recession of the 1970s, and perhaps soon it will match the Great Depression. So says the CEO of General Electric.
Jeff Immelt says that unlike other downturns, this one is faced with limited liquidity. He stressed that governments around the world have gone "all in”… "firing as many bullets" as they can to stimulate their economies, and eventually "government always wins". Immelt says it's more important to move forward quickly with a large stimulus package than to worry about the details. Congress - are you listening?
And there's more. Another top economic mind, the co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co – or PIMCO – says the U.S. might head into a "mini depression" unless government spends trillions of dollars. That's trillions, with a "T." Bill Gross told Bloomberg TV "there is a potential catastrophe if the U.S. government continues to focus on billions of dollars". While Congress bickers about mere hundreds of billions, a couple of the brighter bulbs in the private sector suggest it's going to take much, much more.
Gross says that the Fed is going to have to buy Treasuries. That's because some believe that as China's economy slows, it may start buying less of our debt. Goldman Sachs estimates that government borrowing will reach $2.5 trillion this fiscal year.
Meanwhile, these grim assessments came right before today's report that employers cut another 598,000 jobs in January – the worse job loss since December 1974. It brings the unemployment rate to 7.6%. Happy Friday.
Here’s my question to you: Is the U.S. government capable of heading off a full-blown depression?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
How important is saving America’s newspapers?
From CNN's Jack Cafferty:
"How to Save Your Newspaper: A Modest Proposal.” That's the cover story of TIME magazine this week. In it, Walter Isaacson – former managing editor of Time and the current CEO of the Aspen Institute – as well as my former boss here at CNN – writes how the crisis in journalism has reached meltdown proportions. He says we can now imagine a time when some big cities will no longer have a newspaper, saying that last year more people in this country got their news online for free than paid for it by buying newspapers and magazines.
News outlets now primarily rely on advertising revenue and not on newsstand sales and subscriptions.
Isaacson describes how news outlets now primarily rely on advertising revenue and not on newsstand sales and subscriptions. He says that in order for newspapers to survive they will have to charge for content by way of subscriptions. He also suggests introducing an easy payment system – like how people buy songs on i-Tunes or use an EZ pass.
It's clear that with the decline of advertising dollars, newspapers are in deep trouble. Publisher McClatchy reported a $21.7 million loss for the fourth quarter. It says it plans to cut about $100 million this year, it's unclear how much of that will come in the form of layoffs. Other companies like the New York Times, Gannett and Lee Enterprises have already reported lower profits in that same quarter. And, Rupert Murdoch's giant media conglomerate News Corp posted its biggest ever quarterly net loss this week, taking a write-down of $8.4 billion.
The CEO of another struggling company, the Sun-Times Media Group, says he'll resign at the end of the month – after the company announced last month it would close a dozen of its weekly papers and ask union workers to take a pay cut.
Here’s my question to you: How important is it to save America's newspapers?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
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