[lit-ideas] Re: The Poverty of Heritage
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 19:32:46 -0700
On May 24, 2006, at 6:47 PM, John McCreery wrote:
They have a different
solution - bring more nurses from developing countries into the United
States. These nurses will be very happy to work for the current wages
received by nurses in the United States, which are far higher than
what nurses in places like the Philippines or India earn. (Never mind
the impact that this drain of nurses has on developing countries.)
My sense of humor caused me to substitute "CEO"s for nurses in this
paragraph. And then I wondered, "what would that do to America?" Case
in point. Scottish Power bought our local power company. In came
senior management from Scotland. Whatever windfall was supposed to
happen didn't, and so the company was again bought out, this time by
Berkshire Hathaway, Mr. W. Buffet's company. Next thing we read in the
paper is all about the "fear of god" being put into employees (they,
being Scots clearly didn't have any such thing built in) and the
abolition of "coffee shop culture."
So--exercise in what if-- what would happen to the U.S. if top
management slots were filled by folk from elsewhere? (You supply the
country.) Would managerial wages be depressed or would boards argue
that, having chosen the best available, these new people have to be
compensated as the others were? For one reason or another?
I guess I'm asking you to think about the flip side of poverty, those
wealthy folk people so love to hate. Are they just replaceable
Dickensian dickheads or are they somehow, as boards seem to think, key?
Argument by anecdote or statistic or Gearyscopic hyperbole is fine with
me.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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