THERE is a whole lot of evidence that "public service" in our economic system has nearly vanished. Out-sourcing manufacturing industries, grossly high chief executive officer pay, average regular worker pay decreases, and record high unemployment and under-employment in recent years are a few factual indicators. No longer do free-enterprise-capital system supporters consider the outlook of Professor of Economics, Paul Samuelson's idea that our "market" system places a value on public service as an essential to our democracy.

Today, it's the 1987 movie by Oliver Stone “Wall Street” and its slogan "greed is good" – all over the corporate world. At some point in the future, historians will write that in this era, America lost its collective mind. It is sad to say, but there exists little interest in structuring our economic system to benefit the whole nation.

Recently, CEO Ted Kelly of the Liberty Mutual insurance company, with headquarters in Boston, Mass., retired. It became known that his annual salary package – for the last four years – was $50 million. That grotesquely large salary is slightly more than $24,000 an hour for four years. (Do the math: 40 hours per week, 52 weeks in a year, times 4 = 8,320 hours divided into $200 million).

I wonder if Mr. Kelly finds a way of only paying income taxes at 14 percent, somewhat like the tax rate paid by the GOP presidential billionaire candidate Mitt Romney? Compare that to the chief executive of Dean Foods in the 1970s: His pay was reported at $1 million per year plus a new Cadillac every year. Later, he declined new pay raises, saying, "Thought it would be bad for company morale."

Further, in this recent case in Boston, it was the Massachusetts taxpayer who contributed to Liberty Mutual's success (and CEO Ted Kelly). The company received tax breaks of $46.5 million for building the new headquarters in Boston. This sounds similar to our federal subsidies to the oil companies. Just a few weeks ago, the U.S. Senate voted down the bill to terminate the billions of dollars in federal subsidies to these highly successful firms. How absurd, given the oil corporation profits these days, and with the highest ever gasoline pump prices!

When corporations make huge profits, they simply use excess funds to support elected public officials who in turn pass legislation providing public revenues for furthering those rich corporations. How obscenely grotesque, and how Orwellian is that?!

Bruce G. Karolle,
Tamuning