As the June 18 Washington Post reported, for a while it seemed “the all-American rite of passage might instead become a master class in government overreach,” yet public anger was so immediate and vociferous the fine was quickly revoked and the youngsters permitted to reopen down a side street a few yards away.

But these weren’t your garden variety, neighborhood moppets, selling drinks from Mom’s Tupperware pitcher on a card table near the sidewalk. For one, thing, according to the Post, “There was a tent for shade, five plastic coolers, and a couple of industrial steel ones packed with ice and cans of Coke and Diet Coke. For the fundraiser, the kids’ parents had also secured cases of bottled lemonade wholesale…”

For another, among those helping out and defending their boys and girls were the former head of Lockheed Martin and the Red Cross and members of the Marriott family. “When something’s right you stand up for your beliefs,” Carrie Marriott, wife of the hotel heir, said. “That’s what America’s about. It’s about free enterprise. It’s about taking an idea, making it happen, and making it successful.”

Coincidentally, the very next day, the Post reported that total compensation was up an average of more than 20 percent last year for the Washington area’s highest paid executives. Among them, Ms. Marriott’s father-in-law, J. Willard Marriott, Jr., who in 2010 earned nearly $10 million. The report was part of the newspaper’s investigation of so-called “breakaway wealth” among the nation’s richest.

“The evolution of executive grandeur — from very comfortable to jet setting — reflects one of the primary reasons that the gap between those with the highest incomes and everyone else is widening,” according to the Post. “For years, statistics have depicted growing income disparity in the United States, and it has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression. In 2008, the last year for which data are available, for example, the top 0.1 percent of earners took in more than 10 percent of the personal income in the United States, including capital gains, and the top 1 percent took in more than 20 percent…

“Other recent research, moreover, indicates that executive compensation at the nation’s largest firms has roughly quadrupled in real terms since the 1970s, even as pay for 90 percent of America has stalled.”

The reasons? “Defenders of executive pay argue, among other things, that the rising compensation is deserved because firms are larger today. Moreover, this group says, more packages today are based on stock and options, which pay more when the chief executive is successful.

“Critics, on other hand, argue that executive salaries have jumped because corporate boards were simply too generous, or more broadly, because greed became more socially acceptable.”

The enormity of this increase in executive compensation is reinforced by a new study that examines the proxy statements and financial filings of the companies that make up the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. Issued by the independent research firm R.G. Associates and titled “S. & P. 500 Executive Pay: Bigger Than… Whatever You Think It is,” the report finds that among the 483 companies they were able to analyze, the pay of 2591 executives was up 13.9 percent in 2010. Total, before taxes: $14.3 billion, almost equal to the GDP of Tajikistan, population: more than seven million.

At 158 of the companies, more was paid to those in charge than was shelled out for outside audit fees. And 32 of them paid more in top salaries than they paid in corporate income taxes.

As it turns out, this is not a uniquely American phenomenon. Despite the ongoing, international financial malaise, the British newspaper The Guardian notes that, “The globe’s richest have now recouped the losses they suffered after the 2008 banking crisis. They are richer than ever, and there are more of them – nearly 11 million – than before the recession struck.”

The annual wealth report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini finds that the assets of these so-called “high net worth individuals” reached $42.7 trillion in 2010, a rise of nearly ten percent from the previous year at a time when, as The Guardian observed, “austerity budgets were implemented by many governments in the developed world.”

More than half of the world’s richest live in Japan, Germany and here in the United States. The annual “Executive Excess” survey from the progressive Institute for Policy Studies last September found that back in the seventies, only a handful of top American executives earned more than thirty times what their workers made. In 2009, “CEO’s of major US corporations averaged 263 times the average compensation of American workers.” And a USA Today analysis earlier this year found that while median CEO pay jumped 27% last year, workers in private industry saw their salaries grow by just 2.1 percent.

So how are many of those corporations addressing this gross inequity? By trying to cover it up.

Last year’s Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation requires publicly traded companies to report the median of annual total compensation for workers, the total compensation of the CEO, and the ratio between the two. Big business has lobbied loudly against the reporting requirement, and on Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee voted 33-21 to repeal it.

The bill to repeal is sponsored by rookie Congresswoman Nan Hayworth (R-NY), whose official biography cites “reducing regulatory burdens on businesses” as one of her top priorities. Among her leading 2010 campaign contributors: leveraged buyout specialists Vestar Capital Partners, distressed debt investors Elliott Management and financial services giant Credit Suisse. Not to mention the anti-taxation Club for Growth.

Ernest Hemingway claimed that when F. Scott Fitzgerald once said to him, “The rich are different from you and me,” he archly replied, “Yes, they have more money.” Whether it’s true or not, the Hemingway in the story got it wrong. The rich not only have more money, they have more power, more clout — and more to hide.

Here’s a brief personal story that explains why.

In the late ’90s, I worked at a design studio that had a major telecommunications client. More than 50 percent of our monthly billings were derived from creating logos and names for new product launches, helping to brainstorm print ads and direct mailers, and otherwise serving as a creative sounding board. There was no retainer agreement, only new projects that were opened with a rough time estimate and hourly rate.

It was creative nirvana. You could spend as little or as much time as you wanted on a project, as long as you had a range of thinking in your comps. Our clients trusted us, and we trusted them.

My wife and I had been discussing moving to Seattle for some time, and the final decision to make the move was difficult — mainly because this firm was such a great place to work. But I gave my notice, my wife and I packed up our place and hopped in our car for a month-long cross-country jaunt. One morning in Chicago, while lolling at my sister-in-law’s kitchen table eating some oatmeal, I saw in the newspaper that my client’s company had misstated earnings across all of their financial statements and were going to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The project work from that client would bleed away from my former employer.

So, it’s easy to be optimistic about what you can control in your designer/client relationship. You can inform them and provide insight. You can educate them regarding their options, both strategic and tactical. You can even be Chief Design Officer and sit at the big polished mahogany table powering up your big presentation on how you’ll optimize their customer experience and rethink their brand and make amazing new products that will bring in billions. You can make your direct design clients happy, and show success with every project that you do. But you can’t fully control their business decisions beyond what you design, or volatile business conditions that may lead to their demise.

This is why you need to diversify the mix of clients that you choose to work with. Diversification helps to reduce the level of vulnerability you take on from your client accounts as a business owner. Would you put all of your money in one outperforming stock, assuming that in two or three years it will continue to increase in value? As the legally mandated disclaimer says on any investment vehicle: Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Here’s a few reasons why diversification will be critical for your design business:

Diversification will allow you to sustain the loss of a client while protecting your studio overhead.

If you hire a dozen people to service a client that provides a high percentage of your revenue, when that client dematerializes, so do all those jobs. (This can be common practice at large agencies that seek retainer relationships.) This is a weak business model for a small firm and can’t be sustained without risking the collapse of the entire business.

Diversification protects you from cash-flow fluctuations due to client policies in accounts payable.

If you aren’t asking for payment upfront for each design phase, and instead offering credit and Net 15/30/45 billing, you may have lived through this problem with your largest clients. If a client needs to choke down on their accounts payable, it’s your credit on the line, and asking for interest on the late payment won’t make up for your scramble to assess the impact to your business’s cash-flow.

Diversification protects you from being in a poor negotiating position due to being beholden to one benefactor.

When a client knows that you are dependent on their business, it can cause price negotiations that risk diluting the agency’s profit margin. Every agency I’ve worked at that had a lopsided client portfolio has suffered at one point due to this.

Diversifying your client base will make for a more compelling portfolio.

The benefit of a diverse portfolio is that it demonstrates your curiosity, your range of skills in various domains of design, and the desirability of your services. If you want to be the designer whose portfolio contains work samples from only one business type or industry category, go right ahead. But chances are there are only so many similar clients you’ll be able to find.

Even when you become frighteningly busy due to the work on your plate, continue to call prospective clients and new business leads. Continue your networking. If you close down and focus all your attention on making your sole client happy, in the short term you may profit — but your risk of harming your business in the long term will only increase.

Then again, it’s only when the rug is pulled out from under you that you can gain a new perspective … when you’re lying on the floor.

Copyright F+W Media Inc. 2011.

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“I do not see a future for the car maker in the current position,” said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, an auto analyst at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

Analysts have sounded the death knell for Saab several times since Spyker, a small luxury sports car maker, bought it from GM last year for $74 million in cash plus $326 million worth of preferred shares. Skeptics questioned how Spyker and its smooth-talking CEO Victor Muller could turn around a car maker that posted loss after loss during GM’s ownership.

But every time the company appeared to be on the edge of bankruptcy, Muller came up with a new lifeline. His latest move was lining up two Chinese investors — Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile Co. and Pang Da Automobile Trade Co. — in a deal to make and distribute Saab in China. The deal has not yet been approved by Chinese authorities.

Saab spokesman Eric Geers insisted Thursday that the car maker is not headed for bankruptcy.

“We’re saying that we don’t have funding to pay out salaries, but we’re working day and night to find a solution,” he said. “We’re assuming we’ll find a solution.”

Swedish Automobile, formerly Spyker, said it is currently in talks with various parties to solve the financial difficulties, but warned that there can be “no assurance that these discussions will be successful, or that the necessary funding will be obtained.”

The car factory in Trollhattan, in southwestern Sweden, has been plagued by production stoppages since March as Saab has struggled to pay suppliers for parts. Saab spokeswoman Gunilla Gustavs said production would be down at least until July 4.

Muller has sought to raise money with a plan to sell Saab’s property — including the factory — and leasing it back. Russian investor Vladimir Antonov was lined up as a potential buyer, but hasn’t received the necessary approval from the European Investment Bank, which last year gave Saab a euro400 million loan, that has since been reduced to euro280 million.

The Swedish Debt Office, which also must approve such a plan, hasn’t receive any applications from other potential buyers, spokeswoman Linda Sjoblom said.

Hakan Skott, a local union boss in Trollhattan, said the situation “is creating a lot of worries and there are thousands of questions about what will happen now.”

——

Malin Rising in Stockholm contributed to this report.

A few questions certainly need addressing here: First, why would the opinions of advocacy groups matter in a large corporate merger? And second, do these advocacy groups have any credibility when the merger involves a company that has provided them with financial support?

In terms of the first question, Politico suggests that AT&T wants the groups involved because the merger approval process is inherently political:

AT&T is working hard to win approval of the deal from the FCC and the Department of Justice. It’s not supposed to be a political process, but with Democrats — inherently skeptical of big corporate mergers — in control of both agencies, the company isn’t taking any chances.

The issue of the credibility of these advocacy groups is more complicated.

GLAAD officials argue that they have already demonstrated their independence from AT&T by standing up to the telecom giant on net neutrality and decrying AT&T’s decision to advertise on a Spanish language show many consider highly homophobic. (AT&T subsequently ended that advertising deal.)  Jarrett Barrios, GLAAD’s president, noted that a number of other LGBT  advocacy groups have also spoken out for the merger and asserted:

For GLAAD, it’s about the results of the merger — an increase in phone functionality and speed. With better phone functionality, more people will be able to engage in social media and online LGBT advocacy…

…The proposed AT&T / T-Mobile merger has significant impact for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers. AT&T is a union business with a good record on LGBT issues. In contrast, call center workers at T-Mobile have been fighting to form a union, but T-Mobile has been aggressively trying to stop them.

Similarly, the NAACP sees its support of the AT&T deal as consistent with its previous engagements with the telecommunications industry.

Speaking to Salon on Friday, Hilary Shelton, the director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau, said that his organization has a history of weighing in on the telecom business. He noted that the AT&T acquisition was not the first merger to gain NAACP support: The group also advocated for the Comcast-NBC merger (after both corporations made a diversity pledge) and wrote to the FCC supporting the Sirius-XM satellite radio merger.

NAACP endorsements of corporate mergers, he said, are predicated on a number of factors relating to diversity (how people of color are treated in the boardroom; hiring; wages; partnership with local communities; and more). Every year, the NAACP produces a “report card” evaluating how certain companies fare in their treatment of racial minorities. One of the five industries evaluated is telecommunications.

“T-Mobile has never done quite as well as AT&T,” said Shelton. “They failed on the industry report card last cycle. Whereas AT&T is consistently among the top two.” He added that while AT&T is unionized, T-Mobile is not (which is why unions such as the massive AFL-CIO say they too have endorsed the acquisition).

There is a strong argument to be made that the NAACP’s work on behalf of black employment has merged into an all-too-cozy relationship with its corporate supporters. Indeed, as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald tweeted earlier today, “What’s the point of an advocacy group if their positions can be purchased?”

But such an argument could set up a difficult Catch-22 for the advocacy groups: Should the NAACP, or GLAAD, or the numerous other organizations involved here, be precluded from weighing in on specific industry issues involving a company that actively uses funds to promote racial or gender equality, or workers’ rights, through these advocacy groups?

Nonetheless, there is clearly a risk: Once money is involved, it’s hard to know when there’s an actual conflict of interest, and when there’s only the appearance of one.