Remember the Max? The cost of getting fired is disgustingly lucrative.

[mikkel_the_dane]

huh. for someone "not interested in talking" you sure have a lot to say.

The fun thing about TRUTH is than in practice you can disregard TRUTH, if you can do it differently.

 

[Pete in Panama]

...market forces aren't working...

This is where we start to disconnect. My understanding of a market price is where a buyer & a seller agree to make an exchange, they do so freely & willingly, and they walk away happy. In the case we're discussing there's been no allegations of criminal fraud, all involved parties are still happy, so how can we possibly say "market forces aren't working"?

...you seemed to be suggesting a simple link between paying more and getting better executives...

--but you know better now?

 

[Pete in Panama]

Actually, though a bit long it is a pretty interesting read.

There's some correlation, you pay more you get a better CEO, but sometimes you are paying a person to take a job nobody else wants. The blog talks about what a horrible job being a CEO is.

With big companies like Boeing, you'll want a CEO with experience running large corporations. Which means they likely already have all of the money they'll need to live comfortably. All the good CEOs are taken. Lots of mediocre CEOs about. But, even the mediocre ones, you need to entice them to take a job they don't really need. You got offer them something besides a normal salary just to show up.

agreed

 

[Pete in Panama]

...Inter-subjective as shared subjectivity between 2 or more humans...

So that's a new concept to me: subjective, even while 2 or more people agree independently of their own free will we can still call it "subjective".

We could say the same about say, the existence of light. I say that light exists. If you also say that light exists then its existence is 'subjective' even though we both agree that it's their. fwiw, there are so many blind people and badasses who argue about anything in the world, we'd probably find a smaller percentage of those that say light exists than those who say that "good" is better than "bad".

 

[HonestJoe]

This is where we start to disconnect. My understanding of a market price is where a buyer & a seller agree to make an exchange, they do so freely & willingly, and they walk away happy. In the case we're discussing there's been no allegations of criminal fraud, all involved parties are still happy, so how can we possibly say "market forces aren't working"?

I don't think market forces are (or should be) just about that though, there is the implication that they act as a wider moderation force in any given economy, making government regulation unnecessary, and you seem to be admitting that isn't true.

Take pharmaceutical prices as an example. A drug company could sell a simple drug at $1000 a pill and maybe they find enough patients willing and able to pay that much to make a healthy profit. The company is happy and the customers are happy so all is well? Of course, there might be thousands of poorer patients who can't possibly afford the price and suffer or die as a consequence. If the company drops the price low enough for it to be affordable for the poorer patients, even with the larger number of sales, their profits might be lower so market forces mean they don't bother, regardless of the human consequences.

Or a CEO generates huge short-term profits by cutting corners and covering-up safety concerns so receives a massive pay-out as a reward, even after they've been caught and fired as a result. Simple market forces suggest that is all perfectly fine. The company made profit so the CEO earned his massive pay. All the people killed in the plane crashes don't seem to count in that calculation.

--but you know better now?

I think differently. I explained the logic of why I think your idea that there is a direct, unconditional and open-ended link between executive pay and quality of executives is too simplistic and flawed. I would expect you to either defend it with logic of your own or accept that it isn't as simple as you first implied.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So that's a new concept to me: subjective, even while 2 or more people agree independently of their own free will we can still call it "subjective".

We could say the same about say, the existence of light. I say that light exists. If you also say that light exists then its existence is 'subjective' even though we both agree that it's their. fwiw, there are so many blind people and badasses who argue about anything in the world, we'd probably find a smaller percentage of those that say light exists than those who say that "good" is better than "bad".

Okay, we will start with objective:
Definition of OBJECTIVE I used the different version relevant to your use of objective.

1. expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.
2. of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers
3. involving or deriving from sense perception or experience with actual objects, conditions, or phenomena

What does these 3 definitions have in common. That you state something without personal evolution. Further for your example with light, light is objective as per #2. That is not unique to light. I am partial to gravity and its effect. Gravity is objective and how it works, is based on observation and objective accounting of it as per all 3.
Now I will use a stone, a piece of rock. If you are sighted you can describe it. You can touch it and interact with it. You can further use different scientific instruments on it and get objective readings.
So far so go.

I can't do that same with "Money is good". That statement I can't replicate as with the stone. I can't see, touch or otherwise interact with "Money is good", like I can with a stone. And I know of no scientific instruments that give me objective readings of "Money is good".
Further when I check good in general as how it is used by humans, it always involves personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations. And good is not an actual object, condition, or phenomena.

So good is not observable as per #2, not without personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations as per #1 and not an object, condition, or phenomena as per #3.

There is more to it than this. But if you want to do objective as word differently it stops here. Then we don't intersubjectively agree on how to understand objective or what it entails in part as human behavior. That is okay with me and we don't have to go any further.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[Pete in Panama]

...we don't intersubjectively agree on how to understand objective or what it entails in part as human behavior..

OK, I can stipulate everything in your post but please forgive me if I tend to eschew obfuscation.

We got into this when I said that making a lot of money is a good thing. You said that it's possible to do bad things spending money and I agree. Any good thing can be used in a bad way. You must agree that having money is usually good --in fact I'll invite anyone who feels money is always bad to just send it to me.

You don't feel that way do you?

 

[Pete in Panama]

I don't think market forces are (or should be) just about that though, there is the implication that they act as a wider moderation force in any given economy, making government regulation unnecessary, and you seem to be admitting that isn't true.

Take pharmaceutical prices as an example. A drug company could sell a simple drug at $1000 a pill and maybe they find enough patients willing and able to pay that much to make a healthy profit. The company is happy and the customers are happy so all is well? Of course, there might be thousands of poorer patients who can't possibly afford the price and suffer or die as a consequence. If the company drops the price low enough for it to be affordable for the poorer patients, even with the larger number of sales, their profits might be lower so market forces mean they don't bother, regardless of the human consequences.

Or a CEO generates huge short-term profits by cutting corners and covering-up safety concerns so receives a massive pay-out as a reward, even after they've been caught and fired as a result. Simple market forces suggest that is all perfectly fine. The company made profit so the CEO earned his massive pay. All the people killed in the plane crashes don't seem to count in that calculation.

I think differently. I explained the logic of why I think your idea that there is a direct, unconditional and open-ended link between executive pay and quality of executives is too simplistic and flawed. I would expect you to either defend it with logic of your own or accept that it isn't as simple as you first implied.

Sure, it's always possible to come up with something bad about anything good, but my bet is that if you made a lot of money you wouldn't turn it down. In fact, even if you could come up w/ reasons to say it was bad you still would keep it.

Most people (just like you) feel it's good when they make a lot of money. This is becoming somewhat tedious.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

OK, I can stipulate everything in your post but please forgive me if I tend to eschew obfuscation.

We got into this when I said that making a lot of money is a good thing. You said that it's possible to do bad things spending money and I agree. Any good thing can be used in a bad way. You must agree that having money is usually good --in fact I'll invite anyone who feels money is always bad to just send it to me.

You don't feel that way do you?

That point is that I need to agree that having money is good, is evidence that it is subjective in the following senses:
It is not good without humans, because without humans having money would be meaningless as it requires humans having it.
There is no objective referent to the word good.
Good is a subjective evaluation.

Having money is not objectively good. That is my point. It can be subjectively good and that subjective evaluation can be shared among several humans, hence inter-subjective.

 

[HonestJoe]

Sure, it's always possible to come up with something bad about anything good, but my bet is that if you made a lot of money you wouldn't turn it down. In fact, even if you could come up w/ reasons to say it was bad you still would keep it.

Most people (just like you) feel it's good when they make a lot of money. This is becoming somewhat tedious.

That just supports my point. If I was offered double my current wage, I wouldn't turn it down but it wouldn't make me work twice as hard. Equally, if a CEO on $1 million has a chance to get $10 million, they won't turn it down but it won't magically make them any better at their job.

There is some relationship between how much is paid and the quality of the work but it isn't anything like as simple, unconditional or open-ended as you've implied.

 

[ecco]

It's criminally absurd.

Why is it criminally absurd to try to lure highly qualified people to work in a company? If that employee can increase profits from 10 billion to 11 billion he is worthy of a salary of 250 million dollars. That's 1/4 of the profits.

If you had a business that has 1 million in profits and you think Joe can increase those profits to 1,100,000, would you be willing to pay him 25,000? (1/4 of the profits) The problem is that someone who can increase the profits in your company by ten percent would probably cost you more than 25,000.

In that context, the executive getting paid only 25% of increased profits is a bargain for the company and its shareholders.

 

[ecco]

Making lots of money because you were fired is bull****. Amd even not fired, it's bull**** some make millions and billions while full time workers are in poverty and we have massive homelessness and starvation. That too is bull****.

See post # 91.

 

[ecco]

Additionally, if you already have 62 million to begin with, where's the pressure to actually do a good job and perform?

If you get fired, who cares? Your set for life either way,

Not a single CEO will give a royal damm weither he or she succeeds or not.

Your posts show that you have absolutely no concept of what drives people to succeed.

On the other hand. do you think your comments apply to Donald Trump?

After he was elected, did he feel any "pressure to actually do a good job and perform"?

Do you think Donald Trump, as CEO of America, gave "a royal damn" whether he succeeded or not?

To many of us, the answer is obvious, just count the hours spent on the golf course and the countless times preaching to the choir.


Goose, gander, pot, kettle, etc.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Your posts show that you have absolutely no concept of what drives people to succeed.

Do you think your comments apply to Donald Trump?

After he was elected, did he feel any "pressure to actually do a good job and perform"?

Do you think Donald Trump, as CEO of America, gave "a royal damn" whether he succeeded or not?

To many of us, the answer is obvious, just count the hours spent on the golf course and the countless times preaching to the choir.


Goose, gander, pot, kettle, etc.

Not really because I agree with you.

No wealthy person ever gave a damm and the proof as well is in a government ran solely or rather, exclusively by only wealthy people who will never ever have any concern about paying their own bills, paying for food and and having a roof over their heads for their entire life.

What drives these people to succeed is that it's just a game and competition for them. Bragging rights and to see who can make the most on the leader board.

 

[PureX]

Why is it criminally absurd to try to lure highly qualified people to work in a company? If that employee can increase profits from 10 billion to 11 billion he is worthy of a salary of 250 million dollars. That's 1/4 of the profits.

But he doesn't really increase anything. He just exploits everyone else involved in his area of commerce more intently than the guy before him. Because that's what greed is all about. And then he takes as much as he can get for having done so, because, again, that's what greed is all about. And the investors pay it because he made them richer. And again, that's what greed is all about: getting richer. No one cares that he probably made many other people's lives significantly more difficult. No one cares that he added no actual value or well-being to anyone but himself and the shareholders. No one even thinks twice about it because greed justifies all that selfishness. Top to bottom. Even in the eyes of many of the people who are getting screwed. America believes i greed.

If you had a business that has 1 million in profits and you think Joe can increase those profits to 1,100,000, would you be willing to pay him 25,000? (1/4 of the profits) The problem is that someone who can increase the profits in your company by ten percent would probably cost you more than 25,000.

Is this guy NOT gong to increase profits if I don't give him a big slice of those profits? If so, why would I want to hire such a criminal? And it seems to me that the question ought to be HOW is he increasing those profits? Who is paying the cost of that increase?

But no one is even going to ask that, or care about the answer. Because it's all about maximizing profits. Nothing else. It's all just systematized greed.

 

[ecco]

The actual workers--the working class--they are in a world of hurt. But these corporate bozos who don't really do that much get paid a huge jackpot when they fail. They get fired and they are rewarded. Yes, that is the way it is.

Suppose you provide a brief, detailed summary of what you would do to change things for the better.

 

[ecco]

You asked me if I'd take a job that I simply am not qualified to take. Pay is irrelevant

You seem to have hit the nail on the head, without realizing it.

No one, in the real world, is offering you a job as CEO of a major corporation for millions per year, because you are not qualified. No one on this forum is qualified. People who are qualified, do not have time to waste on internet forums.

 

[ecco]

What drives these people to succeed is that it's just a game and competition for them. Bragging rights and to see who can make the most on the leader board.

OK. But you don't get those bragging rights by being lazy. For the most part, people who become CEOs work their butts off.

It's not really any different from being a professional athlete. Hundreds of thousands play Pop Warner football. Tens of thousands make it to high school varsity. Thousands make it to college varsity and far fewer play in the NFL. The ones who do make it have natural talents and work their butts off.

 

[ecco]

But he doesn't really increase anything. He just exploits everyone else involved in his area of commerce more intently than the guy before him. Because that's what greed is all about. And then he takes as much as he can get for having done so, because, again, that's what greed is all about. And the investors pay it because he made them richer. And again, that's what greed is all about: getting richer. No one cares that he probably made many other people's lives significantly more difficult. No one cares that he added no actual value or well-being to anyone but himself and the shareholders. No one even thinks twice about it because greed justifies all that selfishness. Top to bottom. Even in the eyes of many of the people who are getting screwed. America believes i greed.

How did Lee Iococca exploit everyone else involved? He grew up relatively poor. Got an engineering degree. Worked his way up through the ranks at Ford and was instrumental in bringing about the Mustang. He created value for his company by giving consumers what they wanted. How does his work support your assertion that people like that "added no actual value or well-being to anyone but himself and the shareholders"

How has Elon Musk "made many other people's lives significantly more difficult"? How does his work support your assertion that people like that "added no actual value or well-being to anyone but himself and the shareholders".

How has Richard Branson "made many other people's lives significantly more difficult"? How does his work support your assertion that people like that "added no actual value or well-being to anyone but himself and the shareholders".

 

[ecco]

Is this guy NOT gong to increase profits if I don't give him a big slice of those profits? If so, why would I want to hire such a criminal? And it seems to me that the question ought to be HOW is he increasing those profits? Who is paying the cost of that increase?

But no one is even going to ask that, or care about the answer. Because it's all about maximizing profits. Nothing else. It's all just systematized greed.

I see that you failed to address ...

If you had a business that has 1 million in profits and you think Joe can increase those profits to 1,100,000, would you be willing to pay him 25,000? (1/4 of the profits) The problem is that someone who can increase the profits in your company by ten percent would probably cost you more than 25,000.

In that context, the executive getting paid only 25% of increased profits is a bargain for the company and its shareholders.