Gaga, Woods and Oprah — not exactly living in the poor house
“According to Forbes’ Celebrity 100 list for 2010, Oprah Winfrey earned $290 million.

Even if her makeup person or cameraman earned $100,000, she earned thousands of times more than that.

Is that fair?

Among other celebrities earning hundreds or thousands of times more than the people who work with them are:
Tyler Perry ($130 million),
Jerry Bruckheimer ($113 million),
Lady Gaga ($90 million) and
Howard Stern ($76 million).

According to Forbes, the top 10 celebrities, excluding athletes, earned an average salary of a little more than $100 million in 2010.

According to The Wall Street Journal Survey of CEO Compensation (November 2010), Gregory Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media, earned $87 million, Oracle’s Lawrence Ellison ($68 million) and rounding out the top 10 CEOs was McKesson’s John Hammergren, earning $24 million.

It turns out that the top 10 CEOs have an average salary of $43 million, which pales in comparison with America’s top 10 celebrities, who earn an average salary of $100 million.

When you recognize that celebrities earn salaries that are some multiples of CEO salaries, you have to ask:
Why is it that rich CEOs are demonized and not celebrities? … It’s not about the amount of money people earn.

If it were, politicians and leftists would be promoting jealousy, fear and hate toward multimillionaire Hollywood and celebrities and sports stars, such as:
LeBron James ($48 million),
Tiger Woods ($75 million) and
Peyton Manning ($38 million).

But there is no way that politicians could take over the roles of Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga and LeBron James.

That means celebrities can make any amount of money they want and it matters not one iota politically.

The Occupy Wall Street crowd shouldn’t focus its anger at wealthy CEOs.

A far more appropriate target would be the U.S. Congress.” –economist Walter E. Williams