Some interesting numbers

In reading this week's The New Yorker magazine, I came across some interesting numbers.

I'll first give three numbers: 5 million, 10 million and 1.5 million.What do they refer to?

• Obama was reelected by a net margin win of 5 million votes.
• For the Senate in 2012, Democrats received 10 million more votes than Republicans.
• For the House in 2012, Democrats received 1.5 million more votes than Republicans.

And yet because of redistricting, Republicans retained control of the House. It's for this reason we went through the government shutdown and faced default on our debt. It's why there's dysfunction in Washington. Democrats received many more votes last year, but due to gerrymandering and arcane redistricting laws, they do not wield the equivalence in power. Instead a minority of extreme far-right Republicans hold an inordinate amount of power and in many respects abuse it for purely selfish reasons.

More numbers:

In 1965, C.E.O.s at big companies earned, on average, about twenty times as much as their typical employee. These days, C.E.O.s earn about two hundred and seventy times as much.

Incredible. In less than 50 years, CEO pay has ballooned by more than 13 times the compensation of the typical employee. The ratio in 1965 would have a CEO today making $800K assuming a typical employee earned $40K. However, the actual ratio for today has that CEO earning close to $11 million, well above the already bloated $800K figure. Certainly this business model can't last. It's Rome all over again.