Getting A Load of Schick

I see where Schick has introduced a brand-new razor which they promise will revolutionize shaving: the Schick Quattro, featuring not one, not two, not three, but four blades packed into its little plastic cartridge.

A couple thoughts pop immediately into my mind.

First, I'd love to know how I can get a piece of the research and development money Schick will be spending to come up with its next revolutionary idea. I mean, I'd love to get paid millions of dollars to sit around in a room, staring at the Quattro until I finally jump up and yell "Eureka! Let's add a fifth blade!"

And second, I can only say I'm glad I won't be alive a hundred years from now. Considering that Gillette marketed the first twin-blade razor in 1971, and then introduced the triple-blade Mach-3 in 1998, and now we have Schick's four-blade Quattro--well, I figure by the year 2103 they'll probably be up to the nineteen-blade razor. Can you imagine having to wake up every morning and hoist that sucker to your face?

Of course, Schick says that there's more to the Quattro than simply adding yet another blade (along with a second vitamin E and aloe conditioning strip--so I guess there'll be ten of those on the 19-blader of the future). No, it has an ergonomic handle design for advanced precision and control. It has anti-clog technology for superior rinsability. And it has a synchronized, wire-wrapped dynamic blade pack.

Wow.

Of course, no matter how ergonomically designed the handle is, 99% of the precision and control still comes down to your fat fingers and shaky hands, staring at your reversed self in a steam-fogged mirror, feeling sleepy, hurried, hung-over and stressed out.

And superior rinsability still means holding the thing under the faucet for a couple seconds.

As for the fourth blade in its dynamicly wired and engineered plastic cartridge...well, has it really been a problem before this? Has your old razor been missing a lot, leaving big ugly clumps of bristles sprouting out all over your face, forcing other people to avert their eyes? Hell, half the time I'm in such a hurry to get out the door I just drag my three-week old generic drugstore twin-blade across my cheeks without even using shaving cream. Not the closest or most comfortable shave, true, but it doesn't leave me feeling flayed or looking grotesque.

Still, Schick wants us to believe that it seeks to improve the shaving experience of everyone, that it's taking YOUR face into consideration. Funny thing is, if you go to their website, shaving.com, you find they have links for selecting shaving information for different countries and regions around the world. Yet no matter where you go, whether it's the page for Japan or for Africa, all you see are white guy faces and white women legs. Oh yeah, Schick knows a lot about skin.

Schick thinks we're stupid enough to fall for all this. We're not, are we?

Did Richard Grasso Deserve What He Got?

Steven Martinovich recently had an op-ed piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer claiming that Richard Grasso, recently resigned-in-disgrace CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, fully deserved his $97 million dollars in pay and his $148 million dollars in "deferred compensation" plus the $48 million additional dollars in "deferred compensation" that he said he wouldn't take in a last-ditch effort to fend off his critics and save his job. You can read his op-ed here.

Obviously, I don't agree with him. You can read my previous entry on Grasso HERE. And here is the text of an email I sent to Mr. Martinovich. If I get a response, I'll post it as well.

"Read your op-ed piece defending Richard Grasso's compensation package in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Sorry, but I think you are missing the point completely.

The question is not whether or not Grasso's work was or was not deserving of being well compensated. The issue is that he was over-compensated no matter how well he did his job.

This system in which, as you so aptly put it, "people at the top receive magnificent salaries topped off by generous bonuses" is creating a groundswell of anger throughout society. It was not so long ago where people at the top of a company earned only up to around 40 times what their lowest-paid employees earned, and indeed this is still not uncommon in many industrialized companies. Now it is becoming common for top executives to make hundreds of times more than their rank and file workers.

One usual apologia for these exorbitant compensation packages is that companies have to pay this much in order to attract top talent. Most people are unconvinced of that salaries have to be so astronomical.

Grasso's compensation struck a nerve because it appeared to be a case of what the average person suspects to be the real game: people at the top scratching each other's backs, colluding to inflate executive salaries.

You bring up the example of Jack Welch. OK, perhaps General Electric stockholder value did increase by $400 billion during his tenure as CEO. So what? He did not singlehandedly create all that wealth. He got one hell of a lot of assistance from middle management, from secretarial help, from factory laborers. I'm sorry, but I do not believe--nor do most fair-minded people believe--that Jack Welch worked a million times harder, or did work that was a million times more valuable, than other GE employees. His compensation is way out out of whack with his contribution, compared to his support team all the way down the line.

No single person--not corporate executives, not actors, not athletes--deserves these outrageous pay packages that are declared to be fair and necessary. To value oneself so above the people who work for and with you is unethical and unhealthy for a cohesive, workable society.

And hey, if corporate America keeps insisting on these inflated compensation packages, then I say let's bring back the 90% income tax bracket for the highest wages."