"SHOGUN" ON EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION
There’s been a big rumpus recently about the fact that in 1975, the average Fortune 500 CEO made forty times the salary of his average employee, while by 2007 that multiple had increased to eight hundred. Putting aside Democrat, left-wing class hysteria for a moment, let’s consider what "Shogun" has to tell us.
According to Mr. Clavell, in 16th century Japan, all compensation was paid in koku, a measurement defined as “that amount of rice necessary to feed one family for one year.” I don’t know if the Japanese still pay salaries in koku or not, nor do I want to be one of those ugly Americans who sneer at the nonsensical practices of inscrutable foreigners, but, frankly, this koku thing seems terribly ripe for manipulation by cosmopolitans and fast operators. Let me give you an example: Jeannine and I like to think of ourselves as a family — naturally, in our food-stamp application, including our cats PeeWee and Tweeter, and Mr. Bumfin the goldfish in that social unit. Now, Jeannine and I like rice all right, I guess, though I certainly wouldn’t call us devoted rice aficionados, and we might boil up a cup or so of Uncle Ben’s or Rice-A-Roni every few weeks to have beside our franks and beans. But, honestly, PeeWee & Tweeter wouldn’t touch rice with a boathook even if it was mixed up with chunk light tuna and turkey giblets, and Mr. Bumfin pretty much sticks to dried mealy worms. Thus, for the Panky household, a koku of rice doesn’t really add up to that much, say a couple of pounds.
On the other hand, the Patel family next door -- absolutely lovely people -- has an extended family of twenty-two, and probably cooks up, off the top of my head, ten kilos of basmati per day, every day of the year. And on Guru Poornima Day they throw a raucous party much like that in "Monsoon Wedding," and then they’ll eat even more rice. Ipso facto: a koku of rice for the Patels comes in at approximately four tons.
You get the thrust of what I’m trying to say: the definition needs to be tightened up a little before I’m going to conduct my financial affairs in koku. You may wish to do the same, though I understand most of the Fortune 500 is now converting its pension plans to koku to help it better compete with China and India.
In any case, the point is this: in "Shogun," your run-of-the-mill, paddy-wading peasant with ringworm and amoebic dysentery made about one koku a year, most of which got blown on saké, cheap geisha and those boiled soybean jobbies served at Japanese restaurants in place of dinner rolls or tortilla chips. For the purposes of this analysis, let us agree that the groveling serf of Shogunate times received proportionately the same compensation, health insurance coverage, and respect in the workplace as today’s female Wal-Mart employee.
Here’s where it gets interesting: Lord Yabu, daimyo (chief executive) of a middle-sized province, Izu, earned over one hundred thousand koku a year, while Hatamoto Hiro-matsu -- comparable to today's Countrywide CEO Angelo "Fingers" Mozilo -- made almost half a million. And Lord Toranaga (think Lehman Brothers Dick "Fingers" Fuld) must have pulled down a million koku, easy. That’s a million times more than the minimum-wage Wal-Mart associate with the happy-face button stacking Chinese toilet paper in tractor-trailer-sized bales.
And people are complaining about today's multiple of eight hundred! Damn Socialists.
Like Mr. Greenspan, "Shogun" reminds us that the markets can be trusted to regulate themselves and that top people have to be incentivized! I’d be surprised if upper-level executives aren’t earning every penny of twenty-thirty billion dollars a year, plus reasonable perks, before the end of 2008. And we should be grateful, we should get down on our knees, push our noses in the dirt and our asses up into the air, and thank God that the guys at AIG are willing to show up for work at all.
"SHOGUN" ON PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE
“Yabu exhaled, at peace with himself.
‘Now please excuse me. I must consider my death poem.’”
Samurai weren’t against physician-assisted suicide because they were against self-obliteration. Much to the contrary, samurai considered suicide an eminently reasonable course of action for any of an almost infinite number of reasons (becoming a masterless ronin, the surrender of your divine Emperor to Yankee dogs, discovering you had spinach between your teeth during a first date). Samurai simply believed getting a doctor involved was for pansies. (“Pansies,” in this case, connoting not sexual preference—because, Lord knows, Yabu, a terrifically machismo samurai, liked a nice hairless boy every now and then—but, instead, a squeamishness familiar to those of us who can’t watch "CSI" without throwing up.) According to "Shogun," if a man wanted to kill himself, he settled himself comfortably upon a clean, fluffy zabuton overlooking a pleasing vista (Mount Fuji is lovely, but crowded at peak season); had a last cup of green tea rich in anti-oxidants; and meditated -- depending on one's tastes, upon Buddha, one’s honored ancestors, or the Demi Moore towel-dance scene in "Striptease" -- until the mind attained a satori-like contentment. And then, without further ado, sliced a favorite Ginsu across the belly and up to the ribcage, thus allowing one’s intestines to plop gently out upon one’s lap like an upended bowl of the Scottish delicacy, boiled haggis. Here a light smattering of applause or party-horn tooting from the peanut gallery is not considered inappropriate, and indeed helps to cover any inadvertent shrieks of unmanageable pain from the guest of honor.
Ideally, at this juncture, the man of style would then use his own hot blood to pen a final blithesome haiku or manga about the dream-like evanescence of existence -- preferably referencing the marvelously metaphorical cherry blossom, Elvis Presley and/or one's beloved superior at Toyota. Depending on the event budget, it can be a very nice touch to have someone discreetly pluck Dylan’s "You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" (unplugged version) upon a 13-stringed koto in the background. (Or perhaps Mr. Joel’s "Always a Woman to Me" if the seppuku is a result of romantic issues.)
Only at that point, if the caterers have finished setting up and the guests are getting restless -- or if the host shouts, “No! I changed my mind! I want to live!” which, frankly, is considered a major faux pas and best ignored -- might a friend, heir or waitperson step in to complete the job with one — hopefully just one — clean swoosh of the samurai sword, machete or woodpile ax. Finally, depending on the family, its sense of whimsy and the generosity of the deceased’s last will and testament, the head is respectfully washed, groomed and stuck upon a small viewing spike; or placed lightheartedly inside the beer tub wearing the classic Groucho-spectacles-and-mustache party favor; or simply booted over the fence into the sandbox of the neighboring nursery school.
No fuss, no muss, no doctors, no lawyers. Just an elegant sayonara: good night, God bless, see you around next time, neh?
Henry E. Panky
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