3 ms·
I thought that Alan Dershowitz' comment was particularly interesting: Apparently nobody in our financial office has read the story in Genesis about Joseph inte
by mdasen 17y ago
I thought that Alan Dershowitz' comment was particularly interesting:
Apparently nobody in our financial office has read the story in Genesis about Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dream—you know, during the seven good years you save for the seven lean years. And now they’re coming hat in hand, pleading to the faculty and students to bear the burden of cutbacks. It’s a scandal! It’s an absolute scandal, the way Harvard has handled this financial crisis.
The issue that a lot of organizations and businesses seem to be facing now is that they're doing like he says and spending in the fat years what they have which makes the lean years painful. However, this also applies to spending on salaries. As the article notes, Harvard spends a lot more on professor salaries than other Universities because, during the fat years, they spent what they had giving it to professors. And now Professor Dershowitz complains that he has to share in the lean years just as he shared in the fat years.
There are only two plausible ways to do it. Either salaries stay at a pretty steady rate and don't rise in the fat years and hurt in the lean years because the rises are smaller -or- salaries run in tandem with the fat and lean years. You can't get huge raises in the fat years and expect it through the lean years as well.
Now, clearly Harvard's building spree is the cause of some of the hurt, but it isn't like the faculty and students haven't taken their cut of the fat years with the highest professor salaries around and students who pay next to nothing in tuition. If you want in on the fat years, you get in on the lean years.
- lutorm 17y agoHow do you infer that Dershowitz approved of the salary increases in the fat years?
- mdasen 17y agoWell, if he didn't, then why would he complain about cutbacks? I'm not trying to pick on him or anything, it's just that he's quoted. But if your salary is increased from $150,000 to $200,000 and then you're asked to cut it down to $150,000, well, if you didn't approve of it in the first place the chances are that you'd be ok with going back. We often don't get to make those choices as individuals, but usually no one complains about their salary increasing. It's also totally possible that he's protesting on other people's behalf as I doubt he's hurting as a successful book author and probably one of their more well paid professors. But generally speaking, when a company is having fat years, people generally want a piece of it. I don't mean any disrespect to Professor Dershowitz. It's just that most people act like he acts - it's human nature. It's annoying when fat years are here and we don't get a cut. It's annoying when lean years come and people want us to make concessions. I feel that way too. It's completely devoid of reality, but it's an interesting part of our psychology.
- pbhjpbhj 17y agoI'd have to re-read to be sure but I don't think Prof Dershowitz was commenting on salaries at all. The salary of the professors shouldn't be linked to the Uni's investments. The Prof to me was saying that if they'd been less inclined to blow all the money in the rich years then they'd have the reserves needed to tide themselves over the lean years without having to dick about with peoples salaries, etc.. Also, them overspending 100Million on a building has got to bite a bit when they then announce they're going to cut back on your breakfast. $100Mil buys a lot of breakfast.
- gaius 17y agoThe issue that a lot of organizations and businesses seem to be facing now is that they're doing like he says and spending in the fat years what they have which makes the lean years painful. It doesn't work like that tho'. Here in the UK we have lots of underfunded pension funds. So why didn't the companies overpay into their pension funds during the good years? Because if you do that, you'll get raped by the taxman who thinks you're trying to conceal your profits. I don't know what the regulations are around Harvard's endowment, but I bet the people managing it aren't that stupid.