Part 2 - What's going on in America (and what's wrong with America.)

QUOTE from Thomas Jefferson: "When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property."

Yesterday I wrote about GE and Exxon Mobil making billions and paying no income tax. Today I'm writing about the Gannett Corporation, the media giant that owns 23 TV stations and 82 newspapers. My source is The Jim Hightower LOWDOWN.

What I LEARNED about Gannett. Early this year, Gannett employees were notified that, for the third year in a row, they would get no raises and would have to take a week off without pay. To soothe the pain a bit, the note added that Gannett's two top executives would take a commensurate cut in their salaries.

Okay, team spirit! But, only two months later, bonuses totaling $3 million were quietly bestowed on CEO Craig Dubow and COO Gracia Martore. The two also were awarded stock options and deferred pay totaling as much as $17 million.

So, some 32,000  workers were forced into furloughs to save about $17 million for Gannett, but the corporation's number one and number two were then allowed to slurp up all the savings and then some. The sad part is that Gannett's newspaper readership, revenues, and stock price have fallen substantially, and the corporate chieftains are widely viewed as lacking imagination. But they are credited with "aggression cost management" - a cynical euphmism for throwing employees in the ditch.

Once again, working people are sacrified while top executives collect multimillion dollar bonuses.

Is there something wrong with America???? You bet there is and this is one of the main things. Like a female friend told me the other day, "If this accumulation of America's wealth keeps going into the hands of fewer and fewer people who are already wealthy we are going to see some kind of revolution in this country."

Ovid had this to say about wealthy people, "Although they possess enough, and more than enough, still they yearn for more."

And Alexander Pope had this to say, "One can see the respect God has for riches by the people he gives them to."

HUMOR for today from the Reader's Digest. It takes a husband to say something stupid like this. Sue Ater of Kentucky sent this story to RD.

Shortly before our 25th wedding anniversary, my husband sent 25 long-stemmed yellow roses to me at my office. A few days later, I plucked all the petals and dried them.
On the night of our anniversary, I spread the petals over the bed and lay on top of them, wearing only a negligee. As I'd hoped, I got a reaction from my husband.
When he saw me, he shouted, "Are those potato chips?"