On the morality of renting

[Abhishekm]

That's true, but only to a point. As communists are fond of pointing out, loads of people earn incomes entirely disproportionate to thier share responsibilities, an income that also insulates them from any mistakes they make exciting those responsibilities. A Sears manager that screws up really badly stood a real risk of losing his job and a huge portion of his income, meanwhile Eddie Lampert single handedly steered the entire company into the ground and is still a billionaire.

Thats not exactly correct though. Eddie Lampert made that much more than a Sears manager because the collective owners of felt his decision making was worth such a salary (using salary instead of bothering with all the terms for how a CEO earns money).

Part of that is because a position with more authority and responsibility has higher consequences. Sure that might not be for the person making them but definetly for what they are responsible for. A difference in terms between responsibility and liability there.

Sears could survive the occasional fuck up for a regional manager it could not survive Eddie Lampert.

(Also full disclaimer I have no idea who Eddie Lampert is and I have no intention to look it up.)

 

[Terthna]

Thats not exactly correct though. Eddie Lampert made that much more than a Sears manager because the collective owners of felt his decision making was worth such a salary (using salary instead of bothering with all the terms for how a CEO earns money).

Part of that is because a position with more authority and responsibility has higher consequences. Sure that might not be for the person making them but definetly for what they are responsible for. A difference in terms between responsibility and liability there.

Sears could survive the occasional fuck up for a regional manager it could not survive Eddie Lampert.

(Also full disclaimer I have no idea who Eddie Lampert is and I have no intention to look it up.)

Yeah no; that's not how it works. A CEO's "salary" is in no way correlated to the value they contribute to a company; most attain their positions for reasons unrelated to their decision-making skills. Eddie Lampert, for example, became CEO of Sears because he bought the company (actually he just bought a large amount of the company's stock, but it was enough to put him in control).

 

[Abhishekm]

Yeah no; that's not how it works. A CEO's "salary" is in no way correlated to the value they contribute to a company; most attain their positions for reasons unrelated to their decision-making skills. Eddie Lampert, for example, became CEO of Sears because he bought the company (actually he just bought a large amount of the company's stock, but it was enough to put him in control).

That too. But generally jobs escalating in liability alongside responsibility is kinda rare. Afterall the entire point of a public company is to reduce the liability to its nominal owners.

 

[Abhorsen]

In short, making money off money.

So this is quite simply the essence of Capitalism. If you hate capitalism so much, and want to go back to subsistence farming with the government enforcing that you stop making money off of money, have you considered the Khmer Rouge's ideology? They're pretty close. (Just to clarify, I'm not calling you murderous or evil like they are, just comparing the ideologies here, they were the first ones to come to mind)

Yeah no; that's not how it works. A CEO's "salary" is in no way correlated to the value they contribute to a company; most attain their positions for reasons unrelated to their decision-making skills. Eddie Lampert, for example, became CEO of Sears because he bought the company (actually he just bought a large amount of the company's stock, but it was enough to put him in control).

The thing with a CEO is that he is directly beholden to the owners. In the case of Eddie Lampert, he bought the company shares because he thought he could run it better, and thus was beholden mostly to himself. And I think it says a lot that while CEO, he lost >1B in net worth, and keeps losing more? I mean, he got what he deserved, and thoroughly earned his 'pay'. This is one of the reasons that CEOs are sometimes paid in stock.

 

[ShieldWife]

For people of lower or middle class, more responsibility usually correlates positively with more money. Once you get to a certain point of wealth, though, that may no longer be the case.

 

[LordsFire]

Yeah no; that's not how it works. A CEO's "salary" is in no way correlated to the value they contribute to a company; most attain their positions for reasons unrelated to their decision-making skills. Eddie Lampert, for example, became CEO of Sears because he bought the company (actually he just bought a large amount of the company's stock, but it was enough to put him in control).

See, that's the effects of nepotism and the like. And in a healthy economic system, promoting/hiring incompetents wrecks your company, and you're forced to either reform and hire competent people, or your company crashes and burn.

Part of the problem of crony 'capitalism,' is that companies can use the government to entrench their position, and protect themselves from the consequences of their incompetence. If their incompetence is fueled by political ideology, this becomes particularly powerful.

 

[Terthna]

See, that's the effects of nepotism and the like. And in a healthy economic system, promoting/hiring incompetents wrecks your company, and you're forced to either reform and hire competent people, or your company crashes and burn.

Part of the problem of crony 'capitalism,' is that companies can use the government to entrench their position, and protect themselves from the consequences of their incompetence. If their incompetence is fueled by political ideology, this becomes particularly powerful.

As I've said before, the problem with our economic system is that it's not actually capitalism; rather, it's corporatism masquerading as such.