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High salaries may not always reflect how hard a job is

NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, NEW YORK
Sunday, Dec 31, 2006, Page 12

"Even more outrageous is a system where [talk show host] Dr Phil makes more than twice as much as Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, the world's most valuable company."

Dominic Basulto, writer

Searching for a chance to tap into a US$37 billion market that is rapidly growing? Instead of seeking customers who can go somewhere else if they are unhappy, why not try to serve those who have no choice?

Interested entrepreneurs can turn to serving the US' prison population.

There are more than 2 million inmates serving time in US prisons, up from 744,000 in 1985.

As Business 2.0 reports, it would appear that number is not going to shrink anytime soon.

"That translates into plenty of work for companies looking to crack the prison market," business expert Michael Myser wrote in Business 2.0.

There are opportunities just about everywhere. Huge overcrowding and limited budgets have created a growing demand for prefab portable cells.

"Think high-security cubicle," he wrote.

Overall, producing prison cells alone are a US$600 million market.

Any prison needs to invest in security, as well. The market for things like maximum-security handcuffs and barbed wire is US$1.5 billion.

And something as simple as collect calls represents US$1 billion in revenue.

Not surprisingly in a market this big, there are niches.

Incarceration Optimization Program International in New York City has started offering a 100-hour, US$20,000 course that "instructs mainly white-collar criminals on the finer points of prison etiquette."

There seems to be something in going after the ultimate captive market.

CRIME FIGHTERS

Forget plastics. The best career advice a parent may be able to offer a child preparing to enter the work force today is: "Become a corporate ethics and compliance officer."

"In the wake of high-profile accounting scandals, investigations into stock option backdating practices and passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, many companies are hiring more ethics and compliance officers in higher-level positions," HR Magazine reported.

The salaries in this sector are booming as a result, it added. The median compensation package for top global ethics and compliance executives is already US$623,900.

For top domestic executives it is US$464,500. If the trend continues, there will be no shortage of work. Membership in the Ethics and Compliance Officer Association has more than doubled in the last three years.

UNDERPAID?

Dominic Basulto, writer at The American Magazine, is quick to acknowledge that the average chief executive of a large publicly traded company rakes in US$10.5 million a year -- about 300 times more than the average worker.

Nevertheless, Basulto argued in an article that CEOs are underpaid compared with top athletes, entertainers and, more to the point, the people who run hedge funds, private equity firms and investment banks.

"Should we care? Yes. If other positions pay far more, then the best and the brightest minds will be drawn away from running major businesses to pursuits that may not be as socially useful -- if not to the basketball court, then to money management," he wrote in The American Magazine, successor to The American Enterprise Magazine.

Basulto conceded that some corporate CEO pay packages were "outrageous."

He argued, however, that: "Even more outrageous is a system where [talk show host] Dr Phil makes more than twice as much as Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, the world's most valuable company."

Basulto wrote it was ridiculous that "hedge fund managers who make the right bet on the yen-dollar relationship can take home 10 times as much as the head of the nation's largest exporter."

It will be interesting to see how many shareholder resolutions are introduced next year to raise the chief executive's pay.

SUNDAY SIN

A study by Daniel Hungerman of Notre Dame and Jonathan Gruber of MIT found that "when states [dropped] blue laws," which banned commerce on Sundays, "church attendance dipped by 15 percent among those who were going weekly," Reader's Digest has reported.

Churchgoers became as likely as nonattendees to use drugs and their rate of heavy drinking increased markedly.

Hungerman concluded: "What you do Sunday morning could make a big difference in how you spend Saturday night."
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