Random Thoughts, Vol. 7

It has been a hideous year. A wretched, stinking, hideous year. It was the kind of year that immerses you in hopelessness. The kind of year where even a raise was turned on its head and became a liability.

Not surprisingly, the thoughts that collect in your brain resemble the pus that pools in an open wound. They are yellowish and opaque and resemble congealed gravy.

Most of them are sour. A few are jocular. Some aspire to profundity. Of course, there is a difference between aspire and success. Consider this your warning.

This is the caustic send-off 2015 deserves. You will be exultant to see it pass. And if it doesn't, you will cut it out with a knife—with or without anesthesia.

Is there a more-perfectly named basketball player than Tim Duncan?

The tragedy of the eighties was that Hinckley missed and Chapman didn't.

If the Koch brothers earned a combined $910,000 per hour in 2015, can't we make $15?

The FBI processed more background checks in 2015 than in any other year on record, meaning more fire arms were purchased than ever before. Are we safe yet?

Does former Bears coach Lovie Smith deserve early consideration for the Hall of Fame because he reached the Super Bowl with a team quarterbacked by Rex Grossman?

If not for wrapping your brain around the myriad of exclusions, exceptions and conditions that affect your coverage, predicting your needs for the coming year and dealing with the reams of paperwork that arrive (none of which contains the bill—at least until three days before it's due)—all under the threat of a government-imposed fine—we wouldn't need health insurance.

Is there a more-appropriately named street in America than Wall Street?

Do black lives matter only when they're taken by white hands?

Anyone who votes for Donald Trump deserves Donald Trump. But leave those of us with IQs out of it, OK?

And speaking of America, wasn't it a great idea?

Lifted by Gravity

It's as far-fetched as hearing the words “traffic shortage” during the evening rush hour report, but yes, there is a CEO with a conscience in the United States of America. 

Really.

Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price takes income disparity seriously. As he does the oft-repeated fact that the average American CEO makes three-hundred times what their employees do.

So Price decided to do something that would make a real and tangible difference. Instead of making a tax-deductible donation to the local art museum, he gave his employees (even those who don't sit on the company board) a raise.

A great, big, fucking raise.

The minimum wage at Gravity Payments is now seventy-thousand dollars a year.

Shockingly, Gravity has neither gone out of business nor has Price declared bankruptcy.

It is obvious Price is hoping to foster employee loyalty and some off-the-charts PR for his firm. Of course, only time will tell if Price's self-administered pay cut will pay off in increased productivity and allegiance to his company.

But it's hard to believe in these days of Fight for 15 that employees won't take a salary which more than doubles that to heart (if not to mortgage lenders, car dealerships and big ticket appliance stores).

You wonder if the remaining captains of industry see the benefit.

Gravity's web site is still accepting applications. Seattle suddenly seems like a very sunny place, indeed.