So just what am I getting paid for?

That’s the question I wish Meg Whitman and Thomas Friedman asked themselves (both links were originally found at the Exiled Online’s links/ticker).

First the biggie:

Ms. Whitman, former CEO of eBay (back when their stock used to go up), prospective future Republican Governor of California, and friend/associate/advisor to the economically unfamiliar John McCain during his 2008 campaign, apparently got a sweet little (relative to her vast personal wealth) $1.78 million kickback from Goldman Sachs for steering her company, eBay, towards GS’s services.  Kind of like a finder’s fee.  Except she worked for eBay at the time, not Goldman (see this article at the Huffington Post… which suddenly is full of titty links and coverage.  Did they always have so much NSFW content??).

So it’s perfectly understandable if GS happened to be the best contender to provide eBay investment banking services and for Whitman to steer eBay’s business Goldman’s way.  But when Goldman ‘awards’ her service to eBay (and it’s shareholders) for her choice in investment banks by providing her with inside access to profitable IPO issues (remember:  this is inside access for Ms. Whitman, not for eBay), doesn’t she ask herself if it could be a conflict of interest?

And if so, doesn’t she think to herself maybe enriching herself $1.87 million in such a — to be gentle — dubious transaction might not be worthwhile (the article indicates Ms. Whitman is worth about $1.4b.  $1.87 million is worthwhile chunk of change for anyone, but is it worth some potential lawbreaking when you already have a billion?)

Now the piddling $75,000 speaking fee for the journalist:

The New York Times’ star columnist and prolific author (and serial-metaphor mangler), Thomas Friedman, was revealed as having been paid $75,000 for a speaking engagement for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, according to this article at the LA Times.

It is certainly understandable, given Friedman’s positions on renewable energy and his advocation of it’s role in maintaining American technological and industrial leadership, that such a group would wish to organize a presentation by Friedman.

As a journalist, does he not ask himself how this might skew his reporting when clearly the subject matter (and his advocacy) of topics can net him such extraordinary rewards?  Does he worry that may effect his writing and compromise his journalistic integrity?  And even if not, does he (and his employer) not worry that it could be perceived a possible corrupting of the purity of his reporting?  Well, apparently it did, as the $75,000 fee was returned.

These two stories have very little to do with each other, and are certainly quite apart in scale, but definitely share the post’s titular question.  And it does make me wonder why these rich and successful people don’t have an internal regulator that asks themselves what exactly they’re being paid for.

[Full disclosure:  If my employer sent me an extra $2k in my next paycheck, I probably would be quiet as a mouse.  So I'm a big, fat hypocrite.  And this is a real problem pronounced only among the rich and famous, but present probably universally:  We all think we deserve every penny we get, and more, and probably see each dollar paid to us as a dollar paid to us late and few.  This is a social problem, where we are inclined to take whatever we get rather than what we deserve, and not a susceptibility unique to the rich.]

… and the cow goes moo