The Economist weighs in on the increase in corporate executive pay:

The highest-profile cases of excessive pay, unfortunately, are not isolated exceptions. Bosses’ pay has moved inexorably upwards, especially in America. In 1980, the average pay for the CEOs of America’s biggest companies was about 40 times that of the average production worker. In 1990, it was about 85 times. Now this ratio is thought to be about 400. Profits of big firms fell last year and shares are still well down on their record high, but the average remuneration of the heads of America’s companies rose by over 6%.

What accounts for this? Overly-optimistic expectations are one factor:

The pay-setting process is characterised by what has come to be known as the Lake Wobegon effect, after the novel �Lake Wobegon Days� by Garrison Keillor. All Lake Wobegon’s children are said to be �above average�. Most boards appointing a new chief executive will seek the advice of a pay consultant, who will tell them the going rate. The trouble is, no board wants to pay the average for the job. The above-average candidate which directors have just selected as CEO, they invariably reason, deserves more. And so bosses’ pay spirals upwards.

Can this madness be stopped? Yes, says The Economist, by the shareholders:

If shareholders want to break this mould they need to be far more diligent. Greater transparency about executives’ pay will undoubtedly help, and moves in that direction in both America and Europe are to be welcomed. And yet shareholders must also exercise more say in choosing genuinely independent directors to select and monitor the CEO. Few public companies today in either America or Europe have a majority of independent directors. This week, America’s Securities and Exchange Commission took steps in the right direction by proposing an increase in the power of shareholders to nominate and appoint directors. Once they have these powers, shareholders should make use of them.

Sounds good in theory, but in practice it’s a different matter.
This past Monday I attended a lecture by securities attorney John Latham. One of the interesting points he made was that given the rise in shareholder lawsuits and increased liability under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, people may now be more wary of serving on the boards of multiple corporations. I’m not sure if this development will make it easier for shareholders will elect “independent” directors, but it may have some impact on corporate boards.

From the Resonance Asian News Division:

• A Goldman Sachs study predicts the economic output of Brazil, Russia, India, and China will surpass that of the G6 (G7-Canada) within 40 years.

• Some of this growth will come at the expense of America jobs, if Intel chairman Andy Grove is correct. Grove warns

that India’s software and technology-service job market could grow larger than the same market in the United States by 2010, because America continues to send work overseas at an alarming rate.
. . .

The two key drivers of the U.S. economy the last 20 years — tech and services — could face a fate similar to that of the U.S. steel industry, which had 90% of the world’s market share before falling to 10% and never recovering, Grove points out. In a more recent example, the nation’s 90% share of the world’s computer chip market fell to 50% in the 1980s after Japan took advantage of weaknesses in U.S. strategy. Today, most computer chip manufacturing remains overseas.

Buttressing his argument, Grove reminded that the U.S. economy is improving, but the tech job market is not, as hundreds of thousands of jobs have gone to other countries the past two years, and millions are expected to exodus during the next 10. One in 10 jobs at U.S. information technology vendors is expected to move offshore by next year, according to the Gartner Group and the Post.

• In China, excitement is mounting for the country’s first manned space expedition.

Eugene Volokh blogs on this letter sent to Senator Feinstein urging her to strengthen laws against some types of assault weapons. For some reason Professor Volokh leads his post with “National Organization for Women wants to ban about half of all handguns,” even though NOW was one of 40 or so groups to sign it. I guess NOW gets more of a rise out of readers than New Mexico Voices for Children.
Anyway, I was scanning the list when I came across an organization I’m unfamiliar with: the American Association of Suicidology. Unfortunately, their web site is presently down, so I can’t get any further than what Google offers. Apparently, as the name suggests, it’s a group that “promotes suicide prevention and a better understanding of suicidal people.”
Presumably this organization is involved in a gun issue because guns are used in suicides. But what about this legislation? Even if they are successful, is prohibiting assualt weapons really going to have a notable impact on the number of suicides? To one contemplating suicide, does it make a tremendous difference which type of gun he or she may have available? Is there a class of people who will attempt suicide only if they get their hands on an “assault” weapon? Could the availability of a semiautomatic versus a non-semiautomatic weapon be the dispositive factor in a number of self-inflicted deaths?
I doubt it.

Even as the stench from the priest scandals lingers, word comes of another Catholic sex-related outrage:

The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which the HIV virus can pass – potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.
The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to the HIV virus.
A senior Vatican spokesman backs the claims about permeable condoms, despite assurances by the World Health Organisation that they are untrue.

I understand the church’s opposition to birth control, but can’t they promote that belief on moral grounds. Do they need to make dubious scientific claims?

The [World Health] organisation says “consistent and correct” condom use reduces the risk of HIV infection by 90%. There may be breakage or slippage of condoms – but not, the WHO says, holes through which the virus can pass.

In some African areas as many as 20% of the people have the HIV virus, and unprotected sex can be deadly. Therefore, can’t the church at least be scientifically honest and not offer counsel which may unnecessarily risk human life?
Via Lean Left.

From one government propaganda outfit to another:

Almost all of the bureaucrats at the [Iraqi] information ministry have done very nicely for themselves since the war. The government minders who spent their days reporting to the intelligence services on foreign reporters or doing their best to obstruct their work have gone on to well-paid jobs – for the same foreign news organisations they once hounded.
The second-in-command at the information ministry, who spent his days reading the reports the minders wrote about visiting foreign journalists, has been employed by Fox News.

It’s nice when you can move from one job to another, yet maintain a familiar work environment.