It was the companies that obfuscated
numbers in the story to, obviously, deflect from the fact that they paid their CEOs more than they paid in taxes to Uncle Sam.
Satan (impatiently) to Newcomer: The trouble with you Chicago people is, that you think you are the best people down here; whereas you are merely the most numerous.
- - - Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar" 1897