Re: Re: Big business feeds your family.
 

i've always wondered about this John, how well do the upper level employees do? Personally I think American business is back asswards as well I can't understand why CEO's of failing companies actually get pay raises.

It's easy to define altruism out of existence by stipulating that all reasons to act are 'selfish'. The practice has a fairly long history but doesn't seem very useful.
Even if all our acts are done because we get some satisfaction out of doing them, there is a big difference between a person who can get satisfaction out of bringing pleasure to other people and a person who can only get satisfaction from bringing pleasure to him or herself.

When Ayn Rand began an affair with her student, Nathaniel Brandon, she said to her husband and Brandon's wife," If the four of us were lesser people, it could never have happened and you could never accept it. But we're not lesser people."
This strikes me a selfish attempt to get other people to consent to her plan. Nothing particularly noble about it.

She's a philosopher, a proponent of Aristotelean logic, and she can't get modus tolens right.

Re: Re: Re: Big business feeds your family.
 

It's just as bad here. The CEO of Air Canada ran the company into the ground and had to be bailed out be Asian dollars. Then, he got a "you didn't quit" bouns of $10Million. Huh? The staff took massive rollbacks and layoffs, and he got a huge bonus. The kicker is that most of the CEO's own none of the stock beyond the airy-fairy options that constitute some of their bonus.

Options are NOT equity long positions. They do NOT put someone's feet in the fire. The one thing I will say about Bill Gates is that his personal fortune is tied primarily to MicroSoft. That is unusual these days.

Canadian senior level salaries have been skyrocketing thanks to increased profits (lower taxes, gov't grants, etc) but the money has done no good. Unemployment has struggled to get below 8% despite huge GDP growth years (4%+ growth, exceptional). The recovery has been incredible, but only a handful of Canadians have shared in it. Banks are an excellent example. Bank profits have increased by huge sums, now amounting to billions and billions of dollars for each bank. CEO's and VP's make salaries in the tens of millions. They own little stock and take no RISK (recall that we wish to reward entreprenuers for their risk) and have platnium parachutes. The branch staff make $30,000 and struggle with layoffs every few months. Profit sharing is non existant.

I was an Assitant Branch Manager when I first graduated B-School. I was happy to have the job as we were in a deep recession with 14% unemployment. My student loan interest rate was 17%. I made $26,000 a year. My boss made about $40K. His boss, a regional VP, made about $600,000. That disparity has become worse in the years since I was there. And "banker's hours?" I worked 100 hours a week for my $500. Yup, that's $5.00 per hour. I gor so depressed when I figured that out, I quit.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Big business feeds your family.
 

I agree with you and MedMech that a good deal of it seems "a$$backwards", but on the other hand, consider this: If you've spent years or decades working your way up from "grunt" or "entreprenuer" to CEO of a huge company, then have you not earned the right to insulate yourself from at least some of the risk, and to make plans for your future (the aforementioned "parachute")? You have to admit that most of those people have worked thier a$$es off to get to "CEO"...There are always exceptions, but in most cases, you don't become the big cheese by sitting on your butt. Unfortunately, AFTER becoming the big cheese, many do sit on thier butts and let the company nosedive. I don't feel that such behavior should be rewarded, but I don't have a solution either.

Mike

Boring? Perhaps. No substance? Hardly. It is demonstrated every day by billions of people. It has nothing to do with Rand, and I'm not making any judgements or arguments one way or another about "selfishness as a virtue", I'm just pointing out that if you are truly honest with yourself, then you know that this is how it works. No matter how charitable an act, or how selfless you try to convince yourself that you are by performing it, you STILL feel good about it.

Mike

One way us average joe's can fight back is don't sign proxy cards for stocks, do a little research first.

I must have missed that bit in the Bible about greed being a virtue. Or the Koran, or the..

No-one on this earth is 'worth' 500 times another. Having an economic system that encourages this is wrong. The 'working hard' justification makes me smile - I work hard, but so what, I get paid a reasonable amount. Defending it on the grounds that it leads to 'progress' is bizarre. There is no evidence for this - there is a sample size of 1 (history of capitalism). No doubt the same arguments were made for the ancient slave economies. I hope in the future our current system is viewed with the same mixture of horror and incomprehension.

Ding-ding-ding!! We have a winner!

Reciprocity is altruism? I don't think so. Altruitism is a no-strings gift.

In contrast. reciprocity is free-market exchange. "GREED"!

If we put a dollar value on human life than of course, some humans are worth more than others. If for no other reason than composting--Rush Limbaugh would result in more composted value than Paris Hilton. And so on.

But is human value determined only by money? I don't think so. It's a useful metric but not the only one.

Botnst

A person may not be worth "more" or "less", but the work or service they perform CERTAINLY is. That is what we're talking about here...not the buying and selling of a person, but compensation for that person's labor and applied knowledge.

Mike

Huh? We agree? I thought it was the American Way to value everything through the market and the price in dollars. The CEO makes 500x as much, therefore IS worth that much more as a person, since the almighty dollar is the true measure of everything.

I stopped measuring people by their salary or net worth many years ago. The finest people I know have little monetary earning, but contribute enormous effort to making other people's lives better.

Mutual funds have become the primary vehicle for stock ownership for regualar joes, and it means that some fund manager controls your proxy. Mutual funds have changed the stock market in ways that have reduced accountability and executives have taken advantage of it in a big way.

As corporate and government interests continue to merge, the challenge for the elites will be finding new and unobtrusive ways to transfer the huge mass of public wealth generated through taxation into corporate hands. Privatization of previously public services has been the strategy of choice, along with tax rebates for business. Oh yes, I almost forgot....a war now and again works wonders too!;)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Big business feeds your family.
 

Excellent point, and I agree. You'll notice the stock market is doing very well lately, by the way! :)

If only more businesses, and our government, were so inclined to self-regulate and do the right thing! :(

Mike