Michael Eisner/Disney and the concentration of wealth

Title: Disney's Eisner Negotiates New Pay Package
Source: Miami Herald
Date: March 15, 2004

From the article:

Letting Eisner stay may be viewed as a wimpy move by his legion of critics, but it's still a breach of his current contract. If he's not CEO and chairman of the board, he can leave with a severance deal worth about $40 million in cash.

Experts say it's unlikely Eisner will lose any pay in this latest round of negotiations.... That's of little comfort to those who have made Eisner's past compensation packages one of their main complaints against him. Eisner has taken in more than $1 billion in compensation from Disney since coming on board 20 years ago, which averages out to more than $50 million a year.

Michael Eisner's job responsibilities are being cut in half. So he can leave, and he will receive $40 million. Or he can stay, and his pay will not be cut.

The fact is that nothing would change at Disney if Eisner were to vanish tomorrow. In fact, things might actually get better. Clearly he is not worth $40 million per year in either case. That is what is so insidious about the concentration of wealth -- the people who are concentrating it get paid obscene amounts of money even when they are providing no value. And the people who are paying for it are normal consumers, who pay inflated prices on everything they buy to fund the concentration of wealth.