Thank you for those facts. It's an honor to have met Hitler's press agent.

Sometimes, a minor embarrassment is plenty good.

Anyway, we don't have to guess. We have actual documentary film footage of Hitler's reaction to Jesse Owens' winning the gold medals:

http://youtu.be/UU_GhqVgc9M

I thought that was the KongressHalle !

You're probably right. I was just randomly picking a Wiemar olympic stadium in order to make a lame joke.

My fact-checking department is off for the holidays.

Of course. The only reason management wants to keep salaries secret is because it allows them to pay people less.

If there are clear criteria about why people are getting paid what they're getting paid, it should have a very positive effect on peoples attitudes.

In every workplace I've ever been in, it's pretty clear who's productive and who's not. The only reason there would be any surprises and hard feelings is if management is being inconsistent and unfair.

Everyone thinks they work harder and better than they really do

I don't believe that. It has not been my experience that everyone in the workplace has an inflated view of their own value. If anything, it has been a hallmark of modern corporate life that the culture of management rewards those who devalue wage-earners. Remember, it's management that is creating the narrative. Always. And they benefit from the narrative you have described.

I think what you're trying to say is "Management doesn't want to pay people what they are worth, so it's better to keep workers guessing and fearful."

We know there are companies that do in fact put in back doors or weaken security at the behest of the NSA. We have proof of this, as well as (belated) admissions.

I wasn't referring to every company on the list, I was speaking more generally. A whole lot of companies are cooperating with the NSA, from Google and Apple on down to RSA and many others. And if Samsung and Huawei want some of those lucrative government contracts (they do), they will certainly cooperate as well. Corporations have no country, no nationality. My point stands.

Middle management is not really management. They exist to give real management somebody to blame. None of the ART of management that Taco Cowboy was referring to enters into the life of a middle manager. They're just going down checklists and trying not to draw attention. They get paid as badly or worse than the bottom level workers. The 99%-1% model exists in corporations the same way it does in society generally. There are only two categories of employees.

Plus, I'd have to start taking responsibility for investor's greed, which I could never bring myself to do.

Nobody at the C-level takes responsibility for anything. Responsibility is an outmoded concept. Just look at the 2008 banking cock-up. The few criminal investigations there were took place at a level well below the C-level. Or, the fines attached to prosecutions were a tiny fraction of the windfall.

If you neglect to put $1 in the parking meter, you face a $75 fine. If a corporation steals $10billion, the fine might approach $1million, but no more. In this way, accountability is always shifted downward.

The most interesting art on the Moon is the full-size replica of the Deutschlandhalle, built on the dark side.

It's where the Nazi Moon Olympics are held every four years, without any Jesse Owenses to spoil the fun.

There is no way to run an organization with 100% transparency - people will start comparing each others' workload (and/or contribution) with the salary figure.

And that is bad because...?

The art of managing is an ART and it's a very delicate task.

And if you don't believe that, just ask a manager. His work is an ART and it's very delicate and that's why he's entitled to 500 times the salary of someone who works for a living. If you ask, he'll even write a book about his ART and the great delicacy and importance of his work and why he needs to get grandly compensated if he fails and gets fired.

Don't think for a second that these back-doors that companies put in at the behest of the NSA aren't also being used to the benefit of those companies.

So, if the NSA were shuttered tomorrow, what makes you think those back-doors are going to go away? How much is it worth to those tech companies to know exactly what their customers are doing? How much is it worth to their institutional shareholders?

See, the ugliest part of this is that it's a two-headed monster. Fight one head and the other one will come around and bite you. Both government and corporations have come to believe that they are beyond our reach, above reproach and entitled to everything you have.

I work in a unionized environment. All wages are in contractual 'bands', every job is evaluated and placed in an appropriate band based on required skill, risk, shift, education, etc.

This means that, within the band, we all know each other's pay if we bother to look up a job classification and leaf through to the most recent contract's appendix.

We all seem to continue working without being at each other's throats.

I dunno how that happened. I swear I only hit Submit once. And don't that Slashdot code throw an error when you accidentally duplicate?

Oh well, live and learn, right? But not about Duck Dynasty. Nossir.

What ever you do, shoot to kill. He's probably armed and extremely dangerous and he said your mama's fat.

Please Note: You might ask, "If you don't know what a "Duck Dynasty" is, then how do you know the three-act arc of it's drama has come to an end?"

The answer is that I know someone who obsessively follows all that shit. I asked her about a week back if there was anything about a "Duck Dynasty" that I need to know. She said, "Nah". Today, I got an email from her telling me the story has come to some denouement and said that my willful ignorance of the entire topic turned out to have been a wise choice. (I ask that nobody respond to these posts with attempted explanations of anything related to "Duck Dynasty". I feel it's rude to ignore replies, but dammit, I will do so if I have to.

Note: You might ask, "If you don't know what a "Duck Dynasty" is, then how do you know the three-act arc of it's drama has come to an end?"

The answer is that I know someone who obsessively follows all that shit. I asked her about a week back if there was anything about a "Duck Dynasty" that I need to know. She said, "Nah". Today, I got an email from her telling me the story has come to some denouement and said that my willful ignorance of the entire topic turned out to have been a wise choice. (I ask that nobody respond to these posts with attempted explanations of anything related to "Duck Dynasty". I feel it's rude to ignore replies, but dammit, I will do so if I have to.