One definition of obscenity

by

by David Safier

According to a Star article this morning:

Nearly 600 people at four of Freeport's Arizona mines were left jobless less than two years after breaking ground on the Safford mine — the first major new U.S. copper mine in more than 30 years.

Copper prices have dropped dramatically this year after reaching a peak price of $4.26 a pound on May 5. On Friday, the spot price for copper was $1.57 a pound.

The layoffs make sense in the boom-and-bust world of mining. If copper has lost almost two-thirds of its value recently, the need to pull the ore out of the ground has lessened.

This, however, makes no sense:

Freeport CEO Richard Adkerson is one of the highest-paid executives in the United States, with a base salary of $2,083,333 in 2007, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show. With stock options and other compensation added, his annual earnings are worth more than $65 million.

CEO Richard Adkerson makes $65 million, and the company is laying workers off right and left.

Imagine we cut Adkerson's compensation to the bone, say to the just-above-poverty level of $5 million. I know that would cause pain and suffering for his family, but hell, times is hard.

If we take the $60 million left and divide it into $60,000 chunks, figuring that's a salary-plus-extras package for a worker (it's probably less than that, but it's a nice round figure), it would keep 1,000 people employed without costing the company a penny.

Hamlet said, "The time is out of joint." See, English teachers have been right all along when we said Shakespeare is still modern.

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