On Topic: Bones and bonuses

At the American Economic Associationconference in Chicago this past January, the University of Chicago's Luigi Zingales presented an analysis that indicated economists' policy papers that advocate large compensation for executives were 55 percent more likely to see the light of publication than those argue against.

At that same event, according to the Economist magazine, the association acknowledged this imbalance. It also noted that its members have been known to publish analysis that prop up the notion of big pay at the same time they also were doing work for large corporations.

To its credit, the association urged its members that, when they write articles about executives deserving more money, to disclose when those executives happen to be the same folk who give them money.

It's about context, isn't it?

Here's what I mean. In her 2011 book “Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend,” Susan Orlean tells an anecdote about visiting what she believed was the home of the owner of Strongheart, one of a whole breed of 1920s canine movie stars.

The author notes the house wasn't quite as, well, palatial as she'd read in old Hollywood accounts. So she asked the current resident if indeed this had been the home of Strongheart's owner.

The homeowner thought for a moment, then laughed. This hadn't been the dog owner's house, she replied - “This was Strongheart's house!”

That Rin Tin Tin predecessor had been such a moneymaker, the movie studio was convinced the celebrity dog deserved its own address.

“Rin Tin Tin” is a lot like Pete Hamill's “Why Sinatra Matters.” In each case, the author tracks how the book's subject shifted cultural sentiment - at a time when dogs resided in the barn, not as pets in urban dwellers' living rooms, and Italian-Americans were viewed as rambunctious intruders, not pop idols.

I think we've got to keep context in mind as the flames are whipped up during this presidential campaign, each time someone from the left or right pounds a fist to proclaim business executives should, or should not, take home that magic number of 99 percent more in income than the average American.

Certainly Mr. Andrew Schiff needs some context. He's the guy who ended up in the newspapers across the country a few weeks ago for screaming that he felt he was “stuck like a rat in a trap” because - at $350,000 for his marketing director job for a big-time broker - he couldn't afford his children's private-school tuition, Connecticut summer rental home and other accoutrements of the very, very fortunate.

In that same Bloomberg News article, a New York accounting firm exec noted, “People who don't have money don't understand the stress.”

Yep, he's got that right.

It is true that companies need to offer healthy compensation to attract and retain experienced eyes that can see where bumps in the road ahead might lie. Glossy business publications remind us of that at every opportunity.

And I surely am not going to be the one to contend people don't deserve to be paid what they're worth, at the going market rate.

But keeping things in context might light a way through the thicket of this debate.

Arf!