hypocrisyFor a vivid concrete example of this definition, consider the job offer from 'The Graduate University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY)', to Paul Krugman in February, 2014, and Krugman's acceptance. What's the job? Well, it isn't clear --
noun | hy·poc·ri·sy | \hi-ˈpä-krə-sē also hī-\
1: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion
... you will not be expected to teach or supervise students. Instead you will be asked to contribute to our build-up of LIS [Luxembourg Income Study Center] and the inequality initiative and to play a modest role in our public events. During year-two (2016-2017) and thereafter, you will teach one seminar per year, the balance of your workload being made up of contributions as described above.Here's the nine-month salary, for that vague job that has something to do with inequality:
$225,000, plus an annual research/travel fund of $10,000.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1112846-4-9-14-mr10634-res.html#document/p3
Here's the salary list for full CUNY professors (with actual teaching duties) from the 2007-2010 CUNY salary schedule. Many of them may have a mindset similar to that of CUNY adminstrators, so they won't mind being paid so much less than Krugman, even while having to do more work --
http://psc-cuny.org/our-contracts/psc-cuny-contract-salary-schedules
http://www.psc-cuny.org/sites/default/files/SalarySchedules0710.pdf
Notice that 'The City University of New York' is a public university system, which means it is funded by taxpayers -- not only city and state, but also federal -- so every working American who pays taxes is partially funding this university system (along with many others). Here's a brief description of CUNY's funding, dated January, 2012 -- at that time, New York State covered 60% of the operating budget of CUNY senior colleges and their entire capital budget --
http://psc-cuny.org/cunys-funding-sources
Updated: January 12, 2012New York City
Public funding from New York City covers more than a third of CUNY community colleges’ operating budget. Student tuition and state funding make up the balance.
...
New York State
Public funding from New York State covers 60% of the operating budget for CUNY senior colleges and their entire capital budget. At present, student tuition provides 40%.
...
United States
The federal government provides critical funding to public higher education including grants for academic research, Pell grants and subsidized loans to college students, and other direct aid to states.
For comparison, here's a chart from the '1997 Revenues and Expenditures Report' by the 'Mayor's Advisory Task Force on the City University of New York', which shows the bulk of CUNY's costs were also paid by taxpayers at that time. Notice that the tuition portion shown in this chart also includes tax dollars, since it includes financial aid -- in other words, the portion of the cost covered by tuition is exaggerated in this chart, since the financial aid contribution to tuition isn't excluded from the tuition percentage (as mentioned in the footnote on the chart). In short, taxpayers pay the bulk of the cost --
http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/rwg/cuny/pdf/report3/report3_4.pdf
Here's an overview of the Krugman offer at gawker.com, which also includes details about how little other CUNY professors are paid by comparison --
http://gawker.com/income-inequality-institute-will-pay-paul-krugman-25-0-1563245534
https://archive.is/s9sy7
And notice how much less the typical New Yorker makes -- the median income across New York City is just over $50,000 --
http://project.wnyc.org/median-income-nabes/
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/04/paul_krugman_225_000_salary_a_bargain_rate.html
...
But this is one case where I think Krugman is in the right and his critics are in the wrong. Not only should he have had no compunction about accepting CUNY’s offer—he would have been entirely justified in asking for more. And doing so should have no bearing on his credibility as a scourge of rising inequality.
...
Why would going for an even larger salary 'have no bearing on his credibility as a scourge of rising inequality'? How does paying someone so much more than so many others, for even less work, with taxpayer funds, not destroy their credibility as a critic of income inequality?
Of course, there's no way to coherently make the case that being paid far more than your co-workers (who are doing more work), doesn't make a mockery of being a supposed 'scourge of rising income inequality'. So, Salam does the only thing he could do when trying to defend the indefensible -- he uses a series of red-herring fallacies to attempt to distract the reader from the obvious point that no one committed to equality would accept being an example of inequality.
Here are some of the irrelevant details Salam gives in his article:
- Krugman has sounded the alarm regarding income inequality
- Krugman is well credentialed
- Krugman has a stature that will raise the profile of The Graduate Center at CUNY
- Krugman will attract donors that share his convictions regarding income inequality
These points of information may justify a private college offering Krugman a large salary, but they do nothing to undercut the richly deserved charge of hypocrisy, for someone who pretends to be fighting the vary thing he exemplifies.
What is so hilarious about Reihan Salam's article, is that by attempting to defend Krugman's salary by listing the special qualifications that supposedly make Krugman more valuable, Salam unwittingly makes the case that income inequality is justified by individual ability -- and so no one should have a problem with it, because it's fair.
So, if, as Salam claims, Krugman really is worth more than $225,000 per nine-months, because of his unique abilities and achievements, then what on earth is the point of an 'inequality initiative' ?
Salam has already answered the question posed by income inequality -- it's caused by differences in individual ability -- so let's just send Krugman home, along with everyone else being paid with tax dollars at CUNY's Luxemborg Income Study. Then the tax dollars being wasted on the salaries of all the academics involved in this pointless exercise, can be used to help students acquire individual abilities of their own, so that they too might earn a decent living one day -- and hopefully at a job that isn't just another wasteful burden for taxpayers.
And who could make this up --
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/04/paul_krugman_225_000_salary_a_bargain_rate.html
...
To that end, he sought an affiliation with the Luxembourg Income Study, a think tank that gathers and analyzes data on income, wealth, and employment from a number of countries to draw meaningful cross-national comparisons.
...
Understandably, Krugman chose not to disclose any financial details in his announcement. But one can read between the lines. The LIS does difficult, expensive, thankless work, and attracting a scholar of Krugman’s stature would do much to raise its profile. The Graduate Center is home to a number of well-regarded scholars, yet it is not generally seen as competitive with other major research universities with deeper pockets.
...
The mention of 'expensive, thankless work' and the need for 'deeper pockets' is especially priceless following the absurd claim that Krugman would have been justified in asking for more money. Salam gives no indication that he has any sense of the irony of his claim, that researchers ought to be treated like celebrities, and showered with money to study income inequality.
And here's how Krugman, 'that scourge of inequality', responded to CUNY's offer. If there's any indication that this best-selling author had any hesitation over accepting this 'remarkably generous' offer to be involved in an 'inequality initiative', it can't be found here --
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1112846-4-9-14-mr10634-res.html#document/p4
And here's a good comment from J.K. Trotter, at gawker.com, in response to all the reader comments to his post that were focused exclusively on Krugman --
http://gawker.com/income-inequality-institute-will-pay-paul-krugman-25-0-1563245534
https://archive.is/s9sy7
Yes -- who's more hypocritical: a group of hypocrites, or the hypocrite who follows them?
There's plenty of guilt to go around here, but clearly, as Trotter wrote (politely), CUNY deserves the bulk of the criticism, since they're the stewards of the tax dollars they receive, so they have a responsibility to spend them wisely, on things that have a reasonable chance of bringing benefit to the taxpayers who were forced to give them the money.
In that regard, notice another of the extreme absurdities in the previous quote above from Reihan Salam's article at slate.com. Salam described CUNY's Luxemborg Income Study as doing 'thankless work', as if the academics there are toiling away tirelessly to serve the public. Well, of course it's thankless work. No one in their right mind would pay for an 'inequality initiative' from a group of corrupt, pretentious academics.
Here's a good summation of the problem in a reader's response to J.K. Trotter's post. It was refreshing to see this simple, honest description of how wasteful CUNY is being in their dealings with Krugman --
http://weaselzippers.us/beyond-parody-taxpayer-funded-university-pays-krugman-25K-per-month-income-inequality-initiative/
At least some people aren't fooled by the obvious hypocrisy.
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