Not true. I admire the heck out people that create wonderful businesses that provide good jobs and make life easier, richer, dynamic and fun … though I would hope such go-getters would always regard their underlings as human beings with dignity and practical needs that only money can address, even if their take from the pie winds out far beyond the 300 x mark.
Compartmentalizing is a good thing!
Cookies?
The tax system has everything to do with what a company chooses to pay its execs (or more accurately, what CEOs extort from the board as part of the incestuous game of quid pro quo that is played with other people’s money).
What would be the point of a CEO demanding some outrageously exorbitant salary if, say, the top marginal tax rate was 90% and/or there were special tax penalties applied to some defined level of “excessive income”? But in point of fact, the top marginal tax rate was above 90% for many years until about the mid-60s, then fell to 70%. But between the mid-80s and 1990 it fell to below 30%, and the top marginal rate has varied between 30 and 40% ever since.
This dramatic reduction in the top marginal tax rate marked a fundamental, philosophical, qualitative change in the whole basic tax treatment of extravagantly high incomes.
Guess when extravagantly high CEO compensation started to happen?
Another fascinating comparison – also related to tax policy – is the excessive CEO-to-worker ratio in the US compared to other countries.
So you are certain about things you haven’t seen, can’t describe, and of which you have no examples.
But you have no doubts about them, and anyone who says differently is indulging in “fantasy”. :shrugs:
Regards,
Shodan
And for every customer who takes the time to report things like that, once, on one or two websites ; large corporations hire five reviewers to astroturf everywhere.
So every exchange in your life is voluntary? Oh, okay. That completely changes the picture.
This is why every company has a positive reputation and are known for their great products. When I had to buy a car I could find no information on the difference between Buick, Mercedes, Chrysler, Toyota, or Land Rover. Since all car company’s products have the exact same reputation I ended up just throwing darts and ended up with my Fiat.
Which is why you don’t buy cars based on Yelp reviews.
There are many sources of independent or at least trustworthy review, as well as very long listings of validated facts, of every car sold.* I could see glancing down a public-review list or forum or blog or whatever as a very trivial check step, but if you couldn’t tell any difference between these makers and their various models… throwing a dart was probably the most sensible thing you could do. (And not very.)
While this is the cynical view, it’s important to bear in mind that the politics of 2015 just doesn’t have any relation at all to the politics of 1895, labor-wise, for the simple reason that there is absolutely no sane comparison whatsoever between the labor conditions of the two times.
Today’s worker is protected by government regulation to an extent that in the days of modern union organization was completely inconceivable. In the days of Henry Ford’s prime there was no minimum wage, no workplace safety laws, no worker protection legislation of really any kind. Obviously there wasn’t even a hint of any sort of anti-discrimination rules, harassment rules, and the like, so if you were female or not white, forget about it. Workplaces were dangerous to an extent that today would have any business in the United States shut down by the end of the week. The industrial rate of fatal or serious injuries on the job was probably one hundred times higher than it is today, based on such statistics as can be stitched together.
Union or no, today’s worker IS protected by a variety of rudimentary laws; minimum wages, obviously, but also a huge network of workplace safety regulations that are fairly seriously enforced. The level of protection offered to workers now changes the political dynamic. In 1910, when you voted for labour-friendly politicians, you were literally voting for enough money to eat and a workplace that was not going to kill you. Today a lot of that stuff is so legally ingrained in the system you can forget it’s there.
This isn’t to say there is not still some benefit from a pro-labour outlook but you cannot compare a 2015 voter to a 1915 voter in terms of how they weigh labour matters.
Can you give us a hint at what you are driving at?
Several posters have tried to get you to explain, I’m just flat out asking.
I’ve said it quite clearly and I think more than once.
I don’t believe there’s a person on earth who lives and moves in a bubble of nothing but voluntary, mutually-beneficial transactions. You can only say an absurdity like that if you limit it to relatively minor economic and pseudo-economic “exchanges” with a single other person or entity.
To give the simplest and broadest example, some great number of government “exchanges” may be somewhere near benign, but not “beneficial” to the individual except in the highest meta sense of “public good” - and they are certainly not voluntary.
To bring it way down, I think most people have participated “voluntarily” in an exchange that left them with the short, shitty end of the stick. I think you have to take the idea of “beneficial” out onto a long, fragile, partially imaginary limb with respect to, say, having to buy five gallons of gas at a drastically inflated cost because it’s the only gas station for 30 miles.
But I’ve said even more often that if you wish to believe you live and move in a bubble of nothing but beneficial transactions of your own choosing, vaya con Dio. (The band, not the deity.)
So 1. Taxes, 2. Where you get a raw deal in hindsight, and 3. Arbitrary bad luck. Correct?
That was clear, unlike your other ramblings.
If you insist on reducing phenomenally complex systems to three letter words: yes. But your three bullet points, and maybe one or two more of equal breadth, cover one hell of a lot of individual “transactions.” It’s utterly self-serving to pick and choose your choices to include only “gallon of milk” instances.
Which leads to the real issue: it’s not possible to have a very meaningful discussion on this point because “Ruken” and “Shodan” and “Dibbs” and “TommzNR” - and “Amateur Barbarian” - can make up any reality they like, and it’s impossible to argue or defend except in generalities waving in the breeze.
A lot of people stop in here to pour out what are essentially deep mental-health problems. The better among us try to help them, but it’s usually no, no, no, no and no… they aren’t doing any of those things and this isn’t happening and the GF really did do this crazy-ass thing… it’s not only all subjective, but anonymous and likely subject to a high degree of self-delusion.
Personal economics discussions aren’t much better. You can say anything you like about your buying habits, choices of lifestyle, “exchanges,” etc. and there’s absolutely no way to question them unless you, well, voluntarily commit to an honest exchange. (And no way to verify that you are.)
Just as five minutes in person with one of those troubled souls would likely point to the truth of their problems, five minutes in your house would tell me a lot of truth about your putative economic principles. But you’re not likely to invite me over, or any equivalent, so we’re reduced to being a bunch of shadow puppets arguing generalities.
I’m prepared to argue my position from square one to square n… but this isn’t a very good venue for it and the times it’s come up, it would be a huge hijacking of the thread to do so. My arguments from principle and theory are just subject to to being beaten up by sock puppets who can claim anything they like about how they apply to their RW lives - pointless.
So I make what comments I see as constructive in any given thread about personal/consumer economics, and I can see those who get it, and just sigh when others get all pissy about my “ramblings.”
For me, Isamu in post 120 pretty much blew all pro greedy CEO arguers out of the water with the citations of the Experts in the accompanying link, but if you feel the need to make silly remarks about our mental health in order to try and give some credence to your half-dead position that keeps getting more obliterated … then have at it, because at this point it doesn’t hurt to have a few chuckles.
That’s just it. You think I am being pissy. Maybe I am?
I get tired of reading posts here (not necessarily you) where the response Is so carefully planned and so carefully worded based on who they are responding to or who they think they are responding to that the wording becomes vague and we have to get into the head of the poster to see what they are really saying. I don’t like that and it rightfully gets called our sometimes. I think you did this here and that is why I called you out to explain.
As an example of why I see it this way:
So, my just three word response was to counter the long explanation.
For one thing, we differ in that I’m able to be selective about what I regard as meaningful contributions to a thread, and don’t feel any need to argue every single statement made by every single poster… but have at it. CEO pay per se isn’t any part of my argument; I entered this thread on the point that it’s more sensible to argue meaningful comparisons and not extremes.
That you think I said anything about the mental health of anyone in this thread nails down what I suspected, that your participation is “skim and fume,” not “read and reflect.” When you actually address what I say, I’ll be happy to continue the (heh) exchange.
Not to ignore your other points… but are you saying all responses that are too long for you are invalid?
It’s a complex topic that’s gotten more complex as the discussion goes on. I guess we could take it to Twitter and keep the exchanges at bumper-sticker levels.
Not at all. I just prefer clear concise arguments. You challenged another poster something along the lines of “do you think you never make transactions that are not mutually beneficial?” I was interested in what you had to say but found it was vague and was trying to get into your head to determine what transactions you meant.
There have been experiments run using a game where player one gets some amount of money, and has to split it between him and player 2. Player 2 can veto the deal, in which case no one gets anything.
Even if player 2 gets only 1%, both players benefit - but the results show that player 2 rejects splits considered to be unfair. So deals that might be mutually beneficial mathematically are not mutually beneficial psychologically.
It’s a complicated and fascinating topic with a large body of scholarly work, but interested readers may want to start with this article: Ultimatum Game
I don’t think we’re going to get those examples.