What does religion have to do with Wall Street pay?

What does religion have to do with Wall Street pay?  Of course - nothing!  Right?  
Thanks for playing, but that's wrong.  Maybe.  It depends. 
Actually - it's nothing.  A little.  A lot.  Everything.  All of the above.

Wall Street and Religion

The picture at the left is the New York City skyline.  Home to Wall Street.  Many would say the business capital of the world.  Also home to many famous churches.  That doesn't make for any kind of relationship between religion and Wall Street pay.  After all, the way we look at churches is not much different that the way we look at Wall Street.  

Both are buildings.  Both are large organizations, although of different types.  They are similar though, in that both are huge bureaucracies.  And both are similar in that we tend to forget that it's people - individual people - who make up those huge organizations.  The church.  And the big companies on Wall Street.  Just like the little ones on Main Street.

I first wrote about this more than eight years ago.  It seems that if anything at all has changed, it's that things have gotten even worse.  Many people would have expected a Democratic President, Barack Obama, to have made things better.  That the gap between the rich and the poor would have gotten better.  Smaller.  But it didn't.

Now, we have a President, Trump, whose actions make no secret of the fact that his goal is to make the gap as big as possible.  And so, it's time to revisit the topic.  To try to get each of us to think.  Think about what we're doing.  The kind of people we vote for.  The kinds of companies we buy from.  And most of all, since this is a Christian site, to think about who we owe our ultimate allegiance to.  About our Creator.  The one who, for better or worse, put us here to take care of this world - and each other.

What does religion have to do with Wall Street pay?

OK - you're probably still thinking that religion and Wall Street pay have nothing to do with each other.  But please, try to suspend your immediate reaction.  Think about the possibilities as you read what follows. 

I've added to this since the original writing, back in October, 2010.  The starting point for it was an article from Money Central on msn.com, titled "Wall Street pay expected to rise".  Unfortunately, the link is no longer valid.  I actually only use one sentence from the msn.com article.  What's missing is the chance to go back and see what else they said.  However, that doesn't take anything away from what you're about to read.

I'll put updates in text like this, so you can see what I've added, here at the end of 2018.

And so - here it is.

If you're like a lot of people, myself included, this topic will likely get you at least a little upset.  But that's not the point. The reason I'm pointing it out is this sentence from a Money Central article titled "Wall Street pay expected to rise":

"Until focus of these institutions changes from revenue generation to long-term shareholder value, we will see these outrageous pay packages and compensation levels," said Charles Elson, the director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.

That reminds me of something I learned in a graduate economics class.  The premise of the instructor was that "greed is good".  Really?

You know what? He was right!

But - there was one really big caveat to what he said.

The entire statement was --  "Greed is good - if one has a really long-term view".

His point was that corporations were too focused on short-term profits.  They needed to be more interested in what was good for the long-term life of the company - its employees - its stockholders - its customers - everybody.  Then they would be willing to do things that may not seem to be in their best interest as far as next quarter's profit results.  But it would be good for the company in the long run.

That was quite a few years ago.  More than 25. It would seem that not much - if anything - has changed since then.  Sad. 

Actually, now it's getting on to 40 years ago.  And what makes it even sadder than before, as I pointed out - it's getting worse, and there's no end in sight.  Even more sad.

So - what's that got to do with religion?  

Nothing - because churches aren't in business to make money.  At least they shouldn't be.