O Gutmann

I interrupt my weekly Ouaga musings with an important news alert.

http://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.com/media/storage/paper882/news/2008/06/19/News/Gutmann.Pay.Increases.By.40.Percent-3383542-page2.shtml

After her 41% pay raise, Penn President Amy Gutmann racks in $1,155,634. We've shackled her in with golden handcuffs, indeed.

$66K expense account? That's like someone's salary.

As if this wasn't enough, the president of the med school earns three times that amount. And that figure doesn't even include pharmaceutical kickbacks.

It makes me fume to think that this is partially where my tuition dollars are going. Or that, most people here in Burkina live on $2 a day.

Burkina comes in as # 176, second to last on the UN's Human Development Index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index. That just barely inches it ahead of Sierra Leone, which is recovering from a terrible civil war.

Of course, the cost of living is also much, much lower than in the developed world. (I buy large, fleshy mangoes for 20 cents and oil is nowhere the $4/gal you'll find in the states.) In fact, I eat for about $2/3 bucks a day.

Yet what a vast income disparity nonetheless. When I contextualize it, the more appalling this news seems.