Big payday?

Reader question:

Please explain “big paydays” in this headline: “Five CEOs getting big paydays while avoiding corporate tax”.

My comments:

CEOs (Chief Executive Officers) are bosses of business firms and companies. They are paid a lot of money but do not pay any corporate tax, which is not right.

Not paying taxes, that is. That is not right.

Well, the fact that some bosses are paid exorbitantly high salaries – hundreds of times more than the average employee – is not right, either.

However, neither subject is a talking point for today. Right now, we’ll address “big payday” alone.

Payday, you see, is pay day literally the day a worker receives his or her pay. In the west, this mostly happens weekly while in our country we get our pay on a monthly basis. Whatever the interval, whenever it happens, the payday is always a time for celebration – in some cases, male workers are so happy that they go straight to a pub and drink all their week’s wages away, hence returning home to find themselves and family in greater trouble.

At least that’s something that used to happen to some folks somewhere in Europe in the old days, when life was hard and when workers weren’t getting big paydays at all.

So, what’s “big payday”? Well, that literally means a large paycheck. In other words, if the payday is big, or large in size, it’s a big payday.

In other words, you get paid a lot of money.

Okay?

All right. Here are media examples of people getting big paydays, big financial rewards in salary or other forms:

1. Warren Buffett tells the BBC the American public can’t be blamed for its anger over the damaging economic fallout from the last fall’s near-collapse of the global financial system, especially since no one has been held criminally responsible.

In a video clip posted by the BBC ahead of its U.K. broadcast tonight (Monday) of a special program on Buffett, the Omaha billionaire is asked about the public’s “visceral” reaction to executives of financial firms getting big paydays, even after those firms had to be rescued by the government.

“It’s infuriating - I can speak more about the American public - but it’s infuriating to people to see their friends losing their jobs. In terms of seeing their friends having their homes foreclosed upon, whatever it may be. And, nobody going to jail. It was one thing in Enron. At least you had (Jeffrey) Skilling and Ken Lay, or WorldCom or those things. Society at least felt there was a little bit of vengeance taking place. But here nobody’s going to jail. In fact, a lot of them are walking off with tons of money which they got, in many cases, with preferential tax terms. So the American public’s exasperation of this is very understandable.”

- Warren Buffett to BBC: Americans Understandably ‘Exasperated’ No One’s Gone to Jail in Banking Crisis, CNBC.com, October 26, 2009.

2. “Hunger Games” star Jennifer Lawrence tops the the list of highest-paid actresses, according to the annual thespian earnings survey by Forbes.

Lawrence moved up from No. 2 last year to lead the field with an estimated $52 million in paydays from June 2017 to June 2017. Her haul is $1 million more than last year’s leader, Sandra Bullock, who dropped to No. 15 this time around with $8 million in earnings.

Scarlett Johansson weighed in at No. 2 with $35.5 million, followed by Melissa McCarthy ($23 million). Newcomers on the list include China’s Bingbing Fan and Amanda Seyfried. Forbes noted that lucrative endorsement deals keep veterans such as Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie in the top 20.

- Jennifer Lawrence Tops Forbes List of Highest-Paid Actresses, Variety.com, August 20, 2017.

3. Muhammad Ali Jr., 42, has largely been on the outside looking in on his father’s life ever since his father married fourth wife Lonnie in 1986. When he was allowed to have a final deathbed visit with his father before the champ passed away on June 3, it marked the first time he had seen him in more than three years.

“Ali Jr. was cut off nearly every way from his father and their family,” a source tells Radar. “He even suffered the indignity of not being named a pallbearer at his father’s funeral, while Hollywood types like Will Smith and even Muhammad’s nephew Ibn were given the honor.

“He thinks he’s got a compelling story to tell, and he fully plans to tell it now that his father has passed,” the insider continues.

Ali Jr., along with sisters Maryum, Jamillah and Rasheda, was the product of Ali’s second marriage. Ali divorced their mother Khalilah when Ali Jr. was just 5, but Ali’s third wife, Veronica, still made them feel part of the family.

“They didn’t get to spend a lot of time with their father, but then again, Muhammad was so busy with his boxing career they didn’t see much of him anyway,” the source says. “Veronica still allowed the children to visit their dad, and they got to know their stepsisters Laila and Hana, the girls Veronica had with Muhammad.”

But any relationship Ali Jr. had with his father ground to a halt when Ali divorced Veronica and married Lonnie in 1986.

“In Jr.’s mind, Lonnie schemed her way into his father’s life and then ruled it with an iron fist,” a source says. “He would go months without being allowed to talk to his father on the telephone, and years without personal visits.

“Jr. was just growing into a man when his father married Lonnie, and he says he lost his father when he needed a father the most. He can never forgive her for that.”

While the source says Ali Jr. might still be in a position to lay a partial claim to his father’s estate, “He’s more interested in finding a book agent and being able to tell his story.”

“Jr. is struggling financially, and while he stands to get a big payday from writing a book, he says he’s more interested in setting the record straight on what the Ali family was truly like — and how they were torn apart at the hands of his stepmother,” the source says.

- Muhammad’s Only Biological Son Set To Expose Scheming Stepmom In Blockbuster Book, RadarOnline.com, June 15, 2016.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.