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Alex McRae Columnist

Published Sunday, December 11, 2011

Count your blessings -- or your cash

Once upon a time the Christmas season was a joyous December interlude marked by warm wishes, cold eggnog and entertainment specials ranging from the movie "White Christmas" to the semi-tolerable operetta "Ahmal and the Night Visitors."

These days, it's harder and harder for people to get into the Christmas spirit. Maybe because the season once reserved to celebrate the birth of Jesus is no longer the December show-stopper but just another item in the round-the-clock daily news cycle.

And the biggest non-Christmas news stories wouldn't make anyone happy unless they are sporting a Grinch suit and love to fill stockings with lumps of coal.

Or fill city streets with piles of trash. Case in point: the cranky kids manning the trenches at the latest Occupy Wherever protest.

The Occupy movement began on Wall Street, allegedly as a way to protest greedy bankers who took government bailouts and then committed economic adultery by continuing to make money for their clients and themselves.

And recent reports show things were even worse than originally reported. In addition to boatloads of highly-publicized bailout money, the nation's six biggest banks also received billions in undisclosed funds, according to recent reports by Bloomberg News.

The big surprise, though, was what the bankers did with their "secret" billions. They didn't buy bigger yachts, order Beluga caviar by the bucket or upgrade the executive washrooms. Instead, the banks used their windfall to raise the salaries of mid-level managers.

Thanks to taxpayers, the average salary at those six banks is now a whopping $126,342 per year.

Shocking. Horrible. Hideous, you say. Why, the bankers at the six biggest banks are now earning twice as much as their small bank counterparts. By the way, average private sector American workers now earn a paltry $50,046 per annum.

Talk about greed. Those top-tier bankers are so rich that only one group in America makes more.

Who? Federal government employees.

Even after their recent raises, those evil bankers still earn $27 per year LESS than federal government employees, whose average pay is $126,369.

If the Occupiers are smart, they'll abandon Wall Street, dash off to D.C. and demand government jobs, which offer a holiday/sick leave/personal leave package that allows workers to spend weeks each year Occupying Something without risking the slightest injury to their income.

Maybe that's a lesson Occupiers were never taught by brilliant "educators" like former Philadelphia schools chief Arlene Ackerman.

Right now, Ackerman should be having the Merriest Christmas ever. Mostly because she's not wasting her time in the classroom.

Ackerman was fired last August for lousy performance, but she's not singing "Blue Christmas." Maybe the $950,000 severance buyout she received for doing a lousy job keeps those holiday blues at bay.

That doesn't mean things are perfect. Most people who just got paid almost a million bucks for doing a bad job would be breaking out the champagne. Ackerman isn't. Instead of celebrating her good fortune, Ackerman is moaning about her economic plight.

She decided she couldn't scrape by on a million bucks and has just applied for state unemployment benefits. Chances are good she'll collect her $573 weekly check since the School Reform Commission that fired her agreed not to contest any future unemployment claims by Ackerman.

Who says educators aren't smart? Anyone bright enough to scam $950 grand from a public school system for poor performance deserves a plaque in the moocher's hall of fame. Not to mention a nice Christmas present. And it's a good bet Santa will deliver.

Ackerman may collect unemployment for a short time, but you can bet that someone with her scholastic credentials will soon be snapped up for an executive position at the U.S. Department of Education.

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