c. 1997 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is an Episcopal priest in Winston-Salem, N.C., an author and former Wall Street Journal reporter. E-mail him at journey(AT)interpath.com.)

UNDATED _ I wanted to write about the corporate executive who earned more than $200 million last year, but then my car burned to a crisp. I had just pulled in front of the house, when I noticed flames behind my 5-year-old son’s head.”William!”I shouted.”Get out of the car!” I wrestled him out of his seat belt and carried him across the lawn. Fire fighters came immediately. Three men who earn less in a year than Walt Disney Co.’s CEO earns in an hour tackled a real-life problem, at the risk of their own safety, and prevented a small disaster from spreading.

Meanwhile, Disney’s Michael Eisner makes cartoons, crafts clever tie-ins with burger chains, runs amusement parks, and sells the illusion,”When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are.” What is wrong with this picture? The ethics of compensation are bewildering. Yes, I know about shareholder value and job creation. But we’re still talking cartoons. And judging by Fortune magazine’s recent survey of large companies, Disney’s record, unlike its CEO’s salary, isn’t a top performer. The highest return to investors was turned in by Gillette Co., which pays its CEO a mere $7 million.

And in the case of Gilbert Amelio, chairman of Apple Computer Co., we’re talking compensation of more than $23 million for a year when the company prepared to ditch 4,100 employees and lost further ground in the personal computer market.

Meanwhile, schoolteachers earn $35,000 a year, even though their efforts do more for America’s future than any number of cartoon characters. In fact, the people who truly contribute to our safety and quality of life _ such as teachers, firefighters, trash collectors, farmers, carpenters, plumbers, computer programmers, police officers, newspaper reporters, violinists, and the men and women whose hands actually produce the cars we drive and the houses we live in _ are some of the lowest paid in society. Not the bottom, of course. Bottom pay is reserved for those who care for children.

Then, in the distorted ethics of pay, we have professional athletes. Basketball player Larry Johnson earns more in a year than a school principal could earn in three lifetimes, and Johnson isn’t even playing well. Every time baseball’s Albert Belle faces a pitcher, he earns a year’s worth of minimum wage that we pay a day-care worker.

What are we saying about our values? In the town where I live, a pastor has built a ministry to recovering addicts that changes lives and leads them into productive employment. He would have to work more than 500 years to earn what actor Jim Carrey was paid for a moronic movie that bombed at the box office.

Are we saying that 90 minutes of comedy matter more than human lives? Are we saying that being entertained matters more than freedom of the press, safe elevators or flour for bread? Are our lives so empty that we will pay Michael Jordan ten times the annual payroll of an entire elementary school just to play basketball?

Think of the enormous bucks that go to those who manage money _ not to make a product or to create wealth, but just to move money around. Green Tree Financial’s CEO Lawrence Coss earned more than $141 million last year. The CEO of Merrill Lynch earned more than $11 million. Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Inc. paid so much to its top executives that the average pay for all 5,885 employees was $261,000.

I know the logic: Corporations pay their top executives enormous sums so an entire multi-level hierarchy of pay will motivate employees down the line to work hard and make sacrifices. But while money managers are buying $120,000 Porsches, wage earners stand before the jelly display and agonize over supermarket-brand jam at $2.19 or the name brand at $2.59.

When my car burned, Capt. R.W. Bennett and his colleagues in the Winston-Salem Fire Department came to my rescue. My son was unharmed. Later he watched a Disney video. It began with artful previews and product promotions urging him to want more and more Disney products. For that manipulation of my child’s mind, Michael Eisner earned $204,236,801 last year.

But my thanks and respect go to the three men who actually helped our lives be better.

MJP END EHRICH