Having trouble paying off your mounting credit card debt? Has the interest rate on your variable rate mortgage (on your still under-water property) become too cumbersome? Is that place in the Aspens stretching your budget now that your bonus is only a faded memory?
A classic article in The Onion archives has the perfect solution for you! Thanks to recent advances in quantum physics, primarily in hyper-dimensional string theory, you can now compute perpendicularly across the space-time continuum and take on a 4th shift!
The article quotes Labor Secretary Elaine Chao who notes that, for those lucky enough to have work, the maximum 24 hours of possible work time offered by our plane of existence is simply not enough to provide a living wage in the current economic climate, especially given the debt levels that many Americans are still facing and these difficult circumstances have compelled 76 percent of the American workforce to seek additional hours in an alternate space-time dimension, where more competitive pay can help them to avoid years of crippling debt.
I’m sure this option is going to become especially popular as jobs slowly return as those of us who have been out of work for 6, 9, or 12 months (or more) look for ways to quickly pay down the mounting debt associated with survival in these harsh economic times!
And if you think this article is insensitive, as the real unemployment rate in the working class is approximately 15%, then I ask why you aren’t doing anything about the relative lack of coverage the OccupyWallStreet movement, and similar movements around the world, are getting in mainstream media, which, as I write this, is literally more concerned with Kutcher‘s tweeting than the fact that many of these protesters will be freezing their buttocks off with the coming winter, which can get quite harsh in the northern climates. The 99% is reaching a level of poverty not seen in over a century, and the almost 15 to 1 earning ratio between the top-earning 20% of Americans and those below the poverty line (source: USA Today) is just ridiculous.
Inequality between rich and poor in the US is now more than in many “undeveloped”nations. Something’s just not right and something needs to change. And it should begin with limits on executive pay. The unconscionable ratio between CEO pay and worker pay in 2010 was 325-1. Three Hundred and Twenty Five to One! That’s absurd. There should be strict limits on how much a CEO is allowed to be paid and strict civil penalties on any organization that breaks them. I would propose a law limiting base CEO pay to a maximum of 10 times the average worker salary. If you’re average worker makes 20K a year, I would say it’s unconscionable that you get paid more than 200K. Bonus pay should also be limited as well, and should be a simple formula based on profit or year-over-year return and your salary. Say maximum (10% of profits, 10% year-over-year growth, 10 X your base salary) if there was profit or year-over-year-growth, or half of that if not. And if the corporation pays the CEO more, it has to pay a penalty of 10 times the CEO’s total compensation for greed and unconscionable distribution of wealth. What do you think?