Macarena´s take: some guy is offered the top position in a large institution with 10,000 employees or so and it just happens to be that his girlfriend is one of them.
Many people will say that he should not have accepted, many others will say that she should have resigned, period. Macarena can just see the delightful I-am-so-certain look on their faces.
Think about it. Both solutions lack economic sense, unless you can show that two individuals who, on any given basis, have been judged as adequate for the institution, will be detrimental to it if working together. A love-related externality of sorts. This is ludicrous.
Now, if what you have is not a financial but rather an “ethical” issue with having them work together, then get rid of her. Your “ethical” problem can obviously be solved for a certain price, the reasonable thing to do is to figure out what that price is. Likewise, pay him not to accept.
The wage hike that has outraged so many good folks the world over reflects, Macarena thinks, roughly the following estimate: she will be receiving a stipend exactly equal to her former wage, plus the wage equivalent to non-wage benefits (such as those derived from a very generous pension scheme).
Who wins and who loses financially?. She is exactly where she was before (compensation-wise), the institution pays exactly the same for her services, but does not appropriate them, they have been outsourced, so to speak. The loser is the World Bank, provided she was a good employee.
Was Wolfowitz appointed in a transparent way? Are his politics correct? Is his managerial style hurting the institution? Very important topics indeed. But, alas, not the issue.
90% of World Bank Staffers want Wolfowitz to go, and will probably have their way. Hmmmmmmm.
Having known her share of them, Macarena would be very concerned if current staffers, under current governance, loved the guy presiding their comfortable cocoon.
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2 comments:
I disagree..."Was Wolfowitz appointed in a transparent way? Are his politics correct? Is his managerial style hurting the institution? Very important topics indeed. But, alas, not the issue."
this is exactly the issue. And it is the focus on the front pages on almost every news paper. So much attention is not because Ms Riza's salary is X or Y.
He must have done something really wrong. Otherwise it is not understandable that now the US Secretary of State has to call Europeans for help!
Says Macarena: "...two individuals who, on any given basis, have been judged as adequate for the institution..."
By definition, the head of the World Bank is a political appointee, so it has very little or nothing to do with "being adequate for the job". And in this particular case it was the worst kind of political appointee--the one made "to show the world", which is basically what the Bush Administration has been doing since it came to power. And the world will see, for sure.
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