There’s a moral in this story somewhere, but I’m not sure what it is. The Daily Mail reports that the BBC is trying to prevent the disclosure of the salaries it pays to its top radio hosts because the data may show that the state-supported media giant spends much than its commercial rivals in equivalent slots.
The BBC will be branded ‘disgraceful’ by MPs today for refusing to reveal details of the bumper salaries lavished on some of its top presenters. A committee of MPs found that the lucrative pay packets mean BBC radio shows are up to six times more expensive to produce than their commercial rivals. …
The withering report by the Public Accounts Committee, issued today, also highlights the fact that the corporation had tried to impose a gagging order on the government’s spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, to prevent it revealing the size of the salaries.
Personally I have nothing against people being paid what they are worth, but when salaries are paid outside of the competitive market, how do you know what they’re worth? There will be pressure, as some newspapers fail, to argue that such essential services must be supported, to some extent by the taxpayer. But again, to what extent? If it is taken as a political decision, and if even the data behind that decision remains secret, then what objective basis is there at all for resource allocation? In the New Capitalism, how much is that doggy in the window?
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Ultimately government depends upon Consent.
The scandals in Britain and Obama’s string of deceptions and the thuggish theft of the auto companies both undermine the concept of a Commonwealth based on trust. Once that is gone all that is left is influence, and power.
OT,
Things may be getting serious in Korea.
Fears mount that North Korea is planning to attack the South
Odds are that the DPRK military would shatter if it came to war, however that thousands or tens of thousands would die in the clash. The resulting humanitarian disaster would follow from the complete collapse of the Pyongyang regime and the desperate efforts of millions of refugees, many with weapons, to find food. The impact on South Korea could be catastrophic and China and Japan might be pushed into deep depressions. All concerned should have been stockpiling supplies and planning for the end of the North Korean regime for years now.
It’s about time that the public might – just might – get accurate knowlege of the lordly salaries of the propaganda masters at the BBC.
In a parallel circumstance, we have found that the salaries of the higher-ups in our own NPR empire are also obscenely lavish.
Well, who benefits? Both organizations are monocultural – neither exhibits any diversity of opinion whatever in their selection of news items for reporting, or for excluding. Neither honestly represents viewpoints counter to transnational progressivism or political correctitude. Both, then, serve to support certain political parties, and to paint their opponents repulsive.
So of course the Great Helmsmen who guide their selection and presentation of news and ‘information’ to the public are considered worthy of great rewards, for their heroic efforts in directing the public to proper conclusions at election time.
Some of the news readers on local public radio (WBEZ) approach the standard set by Kurt Vonnegut in “Harrison Bergeron”.
The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, “Ladies and gentlemen – ”
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html
This goes to an idea Ive been sort of toying with, that we either have become or are becoming an oligarchy.
There are say 500,000 (arbitrary number) people who control what happens in this country. Congress, Political party apparatchiks, corporate heavies, media types, state pols, permanent bureaucracy, etc. They operate as a sort of consensus. There is no Bilderburg meeting no network, they just kind of know what “needs to happen”. A bailout or a single payer health system. It just gets decided.
The BBC in Britain is part of their oligarchy, as is Parliament. Whats happening in the BBC is of a part with the expense scandal. As we are well aware the Brits have had a widespread suspending of common sense (cant defend yourself against a burglar, cant talk about islamic terror, etc.)
IS GB getting to a tipping point?
5 Herb,
Your 500,000 sounds like the “loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires” in “the days of miracle and wonder” that Paul Simon wrote about.
A normally peace-loving friend recently told me the French revolution (or more accurately its excesses) never made sense to her, until now.
I like my government propaganda to come from a source that calls itself something like the British Government Propaganda Service and issues warnings such as: “This broadcast is the position of the British Government and is not the necessarily the views expressed or conferred by this station.” Rather than begged off as fact by the BBC’s liberal shock troops. The amount of blather coming out of the intelligencia these days is nearly oppressive.
Try this one: “Cell phone elbow”. Will the promulgators of creative crisis please quit promoting their excuses for “fixing” the world? It was doing great without them.
“In the New Capitalism, what objective basis is there at all for resource allocation?”
In the “New Capitalism” the only “objective” is to mouth the mantras of THE ONE in power, so you can “redistribute” (take) the dwindling resources of everyone else in order to get paid 6 times more than you are actually worth. The BBC and NPR have no doubt mastered this I win-you lose scam while pretending to “serve the public good.”
The skirmishing between the BBC and the MPs started a while back when the BBC started investigating the MP expense-account scandal. There was even a segment on the Beeb with an exchange between the BBC anchor and an MP, who challenged her to reveal her salary. That exchange may have been shown here on this blog.
A pox on both their houses, and may they both fall together. My cousin lives in a community whose houses back onto a boat canal. The local cats sometimes get into ferocious fights where the combatants both end up rolling into the canal. That would be a fitting way for the Beeb and the MPs to go.
Herb — add to that most Women. Women LOVE Aristocracy, and can’t get enough of stories about princesses and princes.
A pretty woman can go far, in an Aristocracy, and their hated rivals, ordinary men, are kept back.
@Whiskey, as they say better being the tenth wife of a guy who is loaded than the first wife of a pauper.
@Roderick, funny how that works, wonder if the Beeb is going to start backing off in the future. I agree a pox on the both of them. As far as public broadcasting here in the States goes it is only (sorta) good for those who less than mainstream tastes in music and with the rise of XM/Sirius that niche is gone.
Let us see some clasical music sandwiched between hourly NPR news slots and then morning edition, all things considered, and fresh air or all music? Easy choice.
SNL used to parody NPR/public radio talk show hosts & hostesses. I recall one skit where the hosts were on ‘shrooms — my recollection is they never deviated from their monotonic flat voices despite the visuals they were “seeing”.
“There’s a moral in this story somewhere, but I’m not sure what it is.”
A wounded baited animal will bite the hand of the one who feeds it.
Bear baiting of the English MP has become the sport of the English Media. Wonder where they learned to do that.
As to learning what an employee is really worth it is worth remembering Ishmael discussing his employment in Moby Dick.
“But being paid,-what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvelous,considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah!how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!”- Moby Dick – Melville 1851
It is the act of paying that gets to the nub. In the sentence prior to the one above Meville writes-”The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us.”Clearly Adam and Eve did not not know about the marvelous notion of deficit spending.
The Top Gear presenters are worth their large salaries due to the returns they generate for the Beeb.
Oh, and Richard congrats on your ranking on this list
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/06/whos-who-in-the-political-blogosphere.html
comment deleted by Dave
Who will win? Simple, the side with the guns.
The entirely likeable personalities one hears amiably putting forth on NPR today are precisely the same folks who held those jobs a quarter century ago.
Well, except for Bob Edwards, who is currently up for cannonization, I think.
Ray Suarez moved to PBS and became a FACE in addition to being a VOICE.
Aside from that, most of the “personalities” have managed to cement themselves to the body of the tax-paying Public like barnacles on a whale’s butt.
Maybe more like remoras.
Let it be a lesson for any union-minded folks. The Liberals don’t give a crap for anyone else’s aspirations for advancement.