This premisis of this joke is a very good representation of how stuff really works in the United States. Should make you think.


The Americans and the Japanese decided to engage in a competitive boat race. Both teams practiced hard and long to reach their peak performance.
On the big day they felt ready. The Japanese won by a mile. Afterward, the American team was discouraged by the loss. Morale sagged. Corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found, so a consulting firm was hired to investigate the problem and recommended corrective action.
The consultant's finding: The Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering; the American team had one person rowing and eight people steering.
After a year of study and millions spent analyzing the problem, the consultant firm concluded that too many people were steering and not enough were rowing on the American team.
So as race day neared again the following year, the American team's management structure was completely reorganized. The new structure: four steering managers, three area steering managers and a new performance review system for the person rowing the boat to provide work incentive.
The next year, the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the American corporation laid off the rower for poor performance and gave the managers a bonus for discovering the problem.

Haha, funny. Reminds me of that one fast food commercial.

Reminds me of when I got in a fight with this one idiot. He threw the first punch and I got 2 days of In school suspension for defending myself. Nothing happened to him.

lol, I wouldn't be surprised if this was based on a true story. And everybody, no flaming me on this, I'm not saying it's based on a true story.

I don't get it...

It's making light on how some American businesses work.

It might as well be. Thats the way crap works in America. Put a heavier workload on the little guy, and pay the leaders to sit on their duff twice as much.

If the little guy is an illegal mexican immigrant, I'm all for it
Everyone's happy with that arrangement.

*shrug* as long as the mexican is happy to do it, more power to him!

That's just mean.... But it saves me money, so I'm happy.

It's not mean... their life over here is way better than it was in Mexico, and they don't even have the right to be here. The thing is, most of the really "little people" in the States are happy with their life. The rest are just the downsides to Capitalism. You know the system: if you've got rich people, you've gotta have poor people. Oh, and the President only gets $400,000 a year. Either of my parents alone makes more than that. My dad makes more than twice as much.

You realize that's unusual... right?
"The United States' median household income in 2005 was $43,318.[43]"

I think he added an extra zero >_>

EDIT: Nevermind.

Yup, but that's what answers.com, the first result in Google, says.

EDIT
And some other sites agree with it. But the thing is, the President has a free house and car and plane, etc. So what does he need money for?

I think between both of my parents and myself we pull in between 75 and 100k.

Anyways, do you have any idea how frickin rich cheney is going to be when this term is up and he goes back to work for haliburton?

Pretty rich. But what I'm saying is, the government is not paying the leaders too much. The leaders may be paying themselves... *cough* Cheney *cough*. But that's another thing.

They're paying them a hell of a lot more than is necessary, PLUS when they're done they get a nice fat pension so they never have to do anything else.

A little more than $100,000 is a very small amount. And $400,000 is way less than is necessary, if you ask me. And definitely a small amount for a man with this much prestige.

Hey, In Ancient Greece, the democratic leaders never got paid because of the prestige.

Let's see... He get's a house, he's covered for all his travel for work, all he has to do is pick people to do his job for him... I'd do it for 5k a year. That'd cover my food expenses, and that's all I'd need.

Not for your retirement. And your kids' education, if you have any. And not for anything you wanna buy... for instance, for me, I would want some computers, video game consoles and video games, etc. that are probably not covered.

As an ex-president you get a nice fat pension for the rest of your life, so it's all covered. And as far as the education of your kids, make them pay for it. Personally, I'm going to be in debt up to my eyeballs when I get out of college.

Clinton only gets $151,800 a year. That's pretty small if you ask me...

That's more than my entire family pulls in, and we live pretty frickin well. We own a house, uhh... 5 computers of decent quality, 4 televisions, thousands of dollars worth of guitar equipment, thousands in stereo equipment, several game systems bought at release, and on top of it all, we manage to fund three smokers, each pulling in a pack and a half a day. We're doing pretty darn good for 100k a year. In fact, we could probobly ditch a quarter of that and still be doing pretty well. No one NEEDS that much income.

That's more than some two-wage family's incomes.

EDIT: Herloss posted before me, and I gotta agree.

Yeah. Noone neeeds to be frikin rich.

Wait a second, $151,800? My bad, I was thinking ten times less
Yah, actually, that is pretty much. Not as much as some, but a lot.

Good point.

Woh,I got:A 42" Plasma screen TV,top of the line PC,Crappy PC,2 other TVs that are both 21",Hundreds or maybe thousands of chinese art,Exersice Machine,Swimming Pool,More than 50 computer games and we get about 60,000 income.

You guys must be in a bit of debt, or you got lucky as hell.

We're not in debt.We can afford a trip to China every two years.