The
Great Recession has been hard on American higher ed. Faculty have lost
jobs, students opportunities. But not everyone on campus is feeling the
pain.
Compensation for major college football coaches has actually increased faster
than corporate CEO pay since 2007. Leading the pack: Alabama head
coach Nick Saban, now pulling in $5.5 million a year. Colleges are even
paying coaches a fortune not to coach. The University of Tennessee
last month fired a head coach who still had four years left on his
contract. Tennessee's athletic department, to pay off the cash still
owed the coach and his assistants, will now not be making $18 million in contributions to the university, money that had been slated for academic scholarships. The overall pay scene, says North American Association of Sports Economists president Raymond Sauer, has become “shameful.”
Activists at the Other 98% are launching a new media blitz against taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil. One ad that may soon grace your TV screen opens dramatically with a power suit declaring, “Here at Exxon we hate your children.” Continues
the smug speaker: “We all know the climate crisis will rip their world
apart. But we don’t care, because it’s making us rich.” Just who might
that “us” include? How about Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson. The oil
colossus revealed
last week that Tillerson will see his salary jump to $2.72 million
come January 1. Also headed in CEO Tillerson's direction: a $4.59
million bonus and a stock award worth $19.6 million, at Exxon’s share
price last week. The total package: just under $27 million. In 2011,
Tillerson pocketed $25.2 million . . .
The mega yacht Octopus cost billionaire Paul Allen $200 million
to build back in 2003. The boat stretches 416 feel, plenty long enough,
non-billionaires might assume, to carry any toy a mega yacht owner
might ever need. But billionaires have needs the rest of us simply can’t
fathom. Enter the “support yacht,” the “floating garage” that many of
our uber now have trailing alongside their megas. The Dutch boatmaker
Amels is currently hawking a new “Rolls Royce” support yacht that runs
220 feet and can even land a helicopter. Most mega yachts, of course,
can also land helicopters. So why do billionaires need a separate
support boat with its own heliport? Mega yacht owners, explains CNBC’s Robert Frank, don't like having to take in all the deck pillows whenever a helicopter lands.
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