THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 8, 1995 TAG: 9510050213
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Ronald L. Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
The most depressing news of the week never made it to Page One last Wednesday.
It didn't become a controversy. Nobody has even talked about it to me.
But in my mind it was a much more gripping example of what's wrong with America than the O.J. trial.
No question that the acquittal of O.J. on murder charges left many Americans with a sour taste in their mouths. But the whole soap-opera setting was an aberration. Most trials don't become the hottest daily television show, featuring scores of over-paid attorneys who would rather win than see justice done. Most cops aren't crooked. And most jurors take their job seriously.
But I wish there had been an equal amount of outrage in North Carolina and across the nation over the story revealing what junk-bond king Michael Milken is apparently going to get for 30 days work.
The ex-con is slated to pick up $50 million for a month of consulting.
Fifty million! For 30 days!
Is this a great country or what?
Fifty million for a man who was barred from selling securities after admittedly violating laws involving stock sales.
And unfortunately, unlike the O.J. trial, Milken is not an aberration.
Milken, who scammed his way into an annual take of half-a-billion dollars before he went to jail for two years, is one of the good old boys in the big leagues who pass around millions in salaries and bonuses and stock payoffs to their pals.
And somebody has to pick up the tab.
Rest assured that it won't be one of the big boys. They take care of their own. Most often it is the little guys.
Millions of jobs have been wiped out in the last few years with Milken and his colleagues' greed selling out company after company.
Milken's 50 million is coming from the latest buyout of big money companies. Time Warner is taking over Turner Broadcasting, and Ted Turner said Milken was so helpful with his advice during the negotiations that he wanted to pay the ex-con 50 million dollars.
Fifty million! For a month's work! For an ex-con who couldn't be trusted to sell securities.
That is sort of like paying O.J. to advise a legislative committee working on ways to cut down wife abuse.
Turner's not doing bad out of the deal, either, according to the Wall Street Journal. He's going to get $20 million a year for the next five years as vice president of the merged company - which is about what his company earned last year, before the merger.
Milken's payoff for his advice comes to about $1.67 million a day.
A minimum wage worker gets $34 a day - and the big money folks are fighting desperately to keep it at that level.
Shouldn't a person who works full time at least be able to support herself? Could you do it on the minimum wage?
The money big shots claim for their expertise really troubles me. That 50 million going to Milken keeps people who do real work from getting raises. It keeps companies from investing in the future. It keeps people who have entrusted their careers with a company from sleeping at night.
And that greed is destroying a nation. The very rich are getting very much richer. The middle class are getting poor. And the poor are giving up.
And Michael Milken is getting $50 million as an ex-con for giving some advice to Ted Turner and the Time Warner folks on how to make their merger work.
Turner never said what advice Milken gave him.
I've got an idea, though, of what Milken recommended.
``Fire 10,000 veteran employees and you'll have plenty of money to pay my commission.'' by CNB