Readers React:  IBM’s crummy CEO got a raise. Who cares?

To the editor: Michael Hiltzik thinks the chief executive of IBM is “mediocre” and thus over-paid. The implication is that we (meaning the government) should do something about that. (“IBM redefines failure as ‘success,’ gives underachieving CEO huge raise,” Feb. 2)

This is interesting, because in my considered opinion (I’m a professional writer), Michael Hiltzik is not a great columnist. The difference between us is that I fully understand that a private-sector worker’s salary is a private matter between that person and his or her employer.

Unless I happen to be that employer, it is, literally and figuratively, none of my business what the IBM chief or a newspaper columnist is paid.

E.G. Rice, Marina del Rey

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To the editor: Hiltzik writes that if we are “looking for an explanation of rising income inequality in America, [IBM CEO Virginia Rometty’s] compensation is a good place to start,” without even trying to link the two. One might well as start with injured Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant’s $23.5 million for not playing at all.

The roots of income inequality are more surely in the lack of early childhood education and healthcare in our cities. Plus, when most Los Angeles Unified School District graduates require remedial education when they get to the California State University system and yet some basketball coaches there are being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, we need look no further for an explanation.

Kevin Minihan, Los Angeles

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