A boss who is a dude in the truest sense?

[LotsaBadKarma]

Dudes, I read this article with great alarm. What is happening to the America that we all know and love when the founder and CEO of a company cuts his own pay from $1,000,000 to a mere $70,000 per year? I'm concerned for our future when idealists like this actually make headlines. What if this were to affect other CEOs in a like manner and they all started to cut their own pay so that their workers could realize a decent wage? Socialism, I tell you, socialism is knocking on the door! To arms, to arms, the Commies are coming!

Of course I'm being facetious. This dude needs to be ordained, not that he needs it. Clearly he is already a dude of the highest order. I wish more bosses were like this guy. Maybe he will be part of setting the tone for the future. That is, unless the other CEOs realize the risk he poses to their extravagant greed pig lifestyles and organize to have him whacked. Maybe he needs a bodyguard?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/seattle-ceo-dan-price-cuts-own-salary-by-90-to-pay-every-worker-at-least-70000-10177261.html

Sorry about my first paragraph. I was doing my best imitation of a far right wing conservative republican voter.

[BikerDude]

For me the main issue is the "myth of the super CEO".
I've lived long enough and worked for enough fortune 500 companies to know that these guys are often (very often) wind bags. Plain and simple.
The notion that a mouthpiece like the typical CEO DESERVES to make on average 331 times as much as the workers in the company is clearly a huge injustice.
Remember virtually none of these guy have real ownership in the company other than whatever stocks their compensation gives them. They do typically have connections in a big interconnected group of "good old boys" and that is what the pay is all about. Which is also of course everything that is wrong with the federal government and big business today.

The time has come and gone for the myth that CEO's are really the captain of the ship.
By and large they are glorified public relations people.

This guy is a rare instance of forthrightness in the world of business.
He is a dude indeed.

[jgiffin]

They do typically have connections in a big interconnected group of "good old boys" and that is what the pay is all about.

Yep. Just look at how corporate boards have turned into a high-stakes game of musical chairs. You vote for my guy, I vote for yours, we pay them all a metric fuckton of money, and then blame somebody else when profits go down and investors bitch about low dividends. This is no less a class-based distinction than you see in India. If anything, the fact it's so abstruse and obscured makes it worse.

That said, I get real nervous when people start talking about what others "deserve" or have "earned." Petitioning the government to redistribute the property of others presupposes the government has an inherent power over everyone's property. Nothing good that way lies. In large measure, that's what lead us to this incestuous orgy of corporate government fornication. The sole answer, unfortunately, is one this society will never enact.

[BikerDude]

They do typically have connections in a big interconnected group of "good old boys" and that is what the pay is all about.

Yep. Just look at how corporate boards have turned into a high-stakes game of musical chairs. You vote for my guy, I vote for yours, we pay them all a metric fuckton of money, and then blame somebody else when profits go down and investors bitch about low dividends. This is no less a class-based distinction than you see in India. If anything, the fact it's so abstruse and obscured makes it worse.

That said, I get real nervous when people start talking about what others "deserve" or have "earned." Petitioning the government to redistribute the property of others presupposes the government has an inherent power over everyone's property. Nothing good that way lies. In large measure, that's what lead us to this incestuous orgy of corporate government fornication. The sole answer, unfortunately, is one this society will never enact.

Nobody is suggesting that the government should do anything to influence CEO pay (except perhaps in the corporations that were bailed out by tax dollars. Giving that away in bonus grinds my gears)
But a recognition on the part of the general public of the blatant cronyism that has penetrated everything and skewed our economy so massively is the only hope for any progress toward something more equitable.
I think people often misinterpret the idea of redistribution. I take it as policies that provide opportunity. Like for instance taxing corporate profits to improve our education in high tech so that we don't hire such a huge percentage of people for technical jobs from overseas. Which as far as I can tell is a majority, mostly from India and China. I have been generally the only native born American in my meetings at my Gig for years now. I shit you not. Every single other person at the table is from overseas. And this is for a lot of the largest companies in the world. I can't mention them by name. So when I hear Bill Gates and the ilk go to congress and beg the case that we need to hire people on H1B visa's because they can't get skilled people in the US it just grinds my gears. To me the follow up to that question is "how do we fix that situation". But that conversation just never happens. Instead I see probably 70-80% of the people working well paying high tech jobs coming from other countries while unemployment here remains an issue an the biggest corporations in the country pay ZERO in corporate taxes. And the CEO gets a nice fat bonus for offshoring US jobs and lowering labor costs. And next year he'll march into congress and make a case to all the fist puppets why he needs to hire even more VISA workers. And of course they will get their way because money skews our electoral system completely.
There are companies that actually teach HR departments how to get around hiring domestic workers in favor of foreign workers. The whole shpeal we get from corporations is just a side step around providing health insurance retirement etc etc.
(Which I have to manage myself because I've been constrained to working as a contractor for years now. Perm jobs for these big corps are on the rare side)
And not just private corporations. It's state and federal government jobs as well.
I think that any attempts by US companies to supplement their workforce with Visa workers should obviously be accompanied by a tax to fund education domestically. That is what I see as "redistribution". Doing what it takes to provide opportunities to the tax paying public who are continually getting zero representation at the table.
For kids today there is no choice but to go into unbelievable debt to get the credentials for a job that will probably be filled by someone from overseas.
I mean a post grad education necessary to live an upper middle class or higher job today will put you in debt so far that you will pay for it all the way to retirement. If you are lucky enough to get a job that lasts that long.
Taxing corporations and the wealthy (the ones who benifit from the cheap labor that is the whole crux of the issue) is the sort of thing that I see as "redistribution". The right sells it as "wellfare" or "takers" but that's not the real gist.
Of course for that to happen the voting public will need to wake up and stop voting for one of the other side in a fake pro wrestling spectacle that is the 2 party system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx--jNQYNgA

[jgiffin]

Good points. The playing field certainly needs to be leveled. Right now, it's like 90% of the population is bowling uphill while 10% are bowling downhill. I wonder whose score will be higher?

However, I think the leveling is best accomplished by removing restrictions, deconstructing barriers to competition, lowering costs of entry into business, and  revising the tax code and other laws (including those on immigration), rather than imposing them on someone else. Putting chains on the beast won't do - time has proven the beast will either break them use them to shackle someone else.  We had a pretty good start on that, called it a Constitution, but people forgot all about it.

[BikerDude]

Good points. The playing field certainly needs to be leveled. Right now, it's like 90% of the population is bowling uphill while 10% are bowling downhill. I wonder whose score will be higher?

However, I think the leveling is best accomplished by removing restrictions, deconstructing barriers to competition, lowering costs of entry into business, and  revising the tax code and other laws (including those on immigration), rather than imposing them on someone else. Putting chains on the beast won't do - time has proven the beast will either break them use them to shackle someone else.  We had a pretty good start on that, called it a Constitution, but people forgot all about it.

The hill then goes to 90 degrees.
That is EXACTLY the fiction that all that money and influence is expended to promote.
We've seen where unregulated capitalism leads. It was called the great depression.
No real economists give any credence what so ever to the power of the "invisible hand".
It's a fiction. Without a representative government acting as a moderating force and ideally a healthy collective labor movement (the healthy part being as tricky as a less corrupt federal government) we just end up in the inevitable reality that resembles a Charles Dickens novel.
It's not chains. It's a football game as opposed to a mob.

I will admit that I'm very down with the good old idealist idea from the 60's of "the new nation". The idea that people just stop participating in the old and organize a new. Sounds like a very empowering and great idea. It was the position of the Yippies. Trouble is that it can't be accomplished. Not because of Government control but because of economic control. It was the pipe dream of a bunch of kids. Nobody over the age of 30 can drop out. They just aren't going to start raising their own crops and riding around in a horse and buggy. And even if you wanted to people don't have that cash for land. Even if people take part and "buy local" and stop feeding the gorilla once you add up the chips the gorilla wins. It's set up that way.

The Yippie "New Nation" concept called for the creation of alternative, counterculture institutions (food co-ops, underground newspapers, free clinics, etc.). Yippies believed these cooperative institutions and a radicalized hippie culture would spread until they supplanted the existing system.

"We are a people. We are a new nation," YIP's New Nation Statement said of the burgeoning hippie movement. "We want everyone to control their own life and to care for one another... We cannot tolerate attitudes, institutions, and machines whose purpose is the destruction of life, the accumulation of profit."[18]

The goal was a decentralized, collective, anarchistic nation rooted in the borderless hippie counterculture and its communal ethos. Abbie Hoffman wrote:

    We shall not defeat Amerika by organizing a political party. We shall do it by building a new nation ? a nation as rugged as the marijuana leaf.[19][20]

OK so the "marijuana leaf" crack is a bit over the top. As is the anti capitalist ideology.
But it's funny how similar a lot of the new ultra Libertarian / pseudo  conservative movements resemble this stuff. IMO it's a pipe dream.
What we need is s functioning constitutional democracy. We don't have that now.
The democracy part is an illusion that people accept as democracy and the constitutional part is on the way out with this fist puppet supreme court we have and law makers who are bought out for a can of bacon grease. (Gotta love Deadwood)

Joseph E. Stiglitz

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, says: "the reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there."[17][18] Stiglitz explains his position:

    Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, is often cited as arguing for the "invisible hand" and free markets: firms, in the pursuit of profits, are led, as if by an invisible hand, to do what is best for the world. But unlike his followers, Adam Smith was aware of some of the limitations of free markets, and research since then has further clarified why free markets, by themselves, often do not lead to what is best. As I put it in my new book, Making Globalization Work, the reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there. Whenever there are "externalities"?where the actions of an individual have impacts on others for which they do not pay, or for which they are not compensated?markets will not work well. Some of the important instances have long understood environmental externalities. Markets, by themselves, produce too much pollution. Markets, by themselves, also produce too little basic research. (The government was responsible for financing most of the important scientific breakthroughs, including the internet and the first telegraph line, and many bio-tech advances.) But recent research has shown that these externalities are pervasive, whenever there is imperfect information or imperfect risk markets?that is always. Government plays an important role in banking and securities regulation, and a host of other areas: some regulation is required to make markets work. Government is needed, almost all would agree, at a minimum to enforce contracts and property rights. The real debate today is about finding the right balance between the market and government (and the third "sector" ? governmental non-profit organizations.) Both are needed. They can each complement each other. This balance differs from time to time and place to place.[18]

[jgiffin]

I don't disagree with much of that in principle, BikerDude. However, it's circular and impractical unless we can somehow fumble our way towards a functioning representative government. That's the trick. It's a bit like saying we don't know whether communism works because it's never been tried. The problem is that both entities (a functioning representative government and communism) are ideals which, in practice, prove demonstrably contrary to human nature. What you end up with - what we have - is a fascist student counsel running the world for the benefit of their friends. I'll trust the corporations, thanks; though it's admittedly not much better.

Also, that definition of Smith's theories ("Firms, in the pursuit of profits, are led, as if by an invisible hand, to do what is best for the world") is really, really, bad. Stiglitz made his name on attacking the free-market, though. And, honestly, he probably treated the subject more fairly in the underlying work, itself. This definition is little better than a straw-man.

[BikerDude]

I don't disagree with much of that in principle, BikerDude. However, it's circular and impractical unless we can somehow fumble our way towards a functioning representative government. That's the trick. It's a bit like saying we don't know whether communism works because it's never been tried. The problem is that both entities (a functioning representative government and communism) are ideals which, in practice, prove demonstrably contrary to human nature. What you end up with - what we have - is a fascist student counsel running the world for the benefit of their friends. I'll trust the corporations, thanks; though it's admittedly not much better.

Also, that definition of Smith's theories ("Firms, in the pursuit of profits, are led, as if by an invisible hand, to do what is best for the world") is really, really, bad. Stiglitz made his name on attacking the free-market, though. And, honestly, he probably treated the subject more fairly in the underlying work, itself. This definition is little better than a straw-man.

Ideals are never realized in purity. They are an illustration of principles.
The pendulum swings and currently we are very far from a representative government.
We have been much closer.
The version that saw the birth of the American middle class. It has worked.
It's been eroded over the years. Hell if judged by his actions Nixon would be a liberal today. That's a laugh.
The problem with this new anti government stance is that it essentially becomes an anti "form of government". That I'm not down with.
As you've said. If people took the constitution seriously we'd be better off. And also if they took the democratic principles of our form of government seriously we'd be better off.
The truth is that our government is what we make it. Or more correctly what we accept.
Human nature is a tricky thing. I'm always amazed that the way people perceive their relationship with the government. It illustrates the mystifying tendency of people to subject themselves to the authority of kings.
But the important point is that the more representative the government the more successful the society. I really can't think of any notable society where that didn't hold up. So in that sense it's in human nature. Not individual human nature.
Not class human nature. But in the nature of nations.
There is a selfish tendency to unravel that on the part of the powerful and it inevitably leads to ruin.

It's the social contract really. Rousseau.
It's about balance. Power money beer you name it.
Cut off the beer and the peasants will be revolting.

[jgiffin]

The problem with this new anti government stance is that it essentially becomes an anti "form of government".

Interesting. Do you mean to differentiate those opposed to the present government (with all the flaws we've outlined) from those opposed to any government at all (i.e., anarchists)?  Or do you mean the current anti-government movement is, itself, a form of government which is predicated solely on opposition to the status quo - whatever that is at the time?

[BikerDude]

The problem with this new anti government stance is that it essentially becomes an anti "form of government".

Interesting. Do you mean to differentiate those opposed to the present government (with all the flaws we've outlined) from those opposed to any government at all (i.e., anarchists)?  Or do you mean the current anti-government movement is, itself, a form of government which is predicated solely on opposition to the status quo - whatever that is at the time?

More basically I just think that people should consider that the government that we are so eager to criticize (or in extreme instances to overthrow) is to a certain extent still the type of government that allows this exact type of criticism.
There are many places where criticism of the Government would have dire consequences. In the grand scheme of things people should realize how "free" we really are. From free speech and free press to the right to collective bargaining etc etc.

[BikerDude]

Back on topic.
This (if it has any teeth) could be a good thing.
Without some type of oversight there is no reason why Execs won't once again gut their own companies by pumping them full of phoney paper and reaping the rewards in huge bonuses and compensation.
http://www.npr.org/2015/04/29/403094749/sec-proposes-new-rules-for-linking-executive-pay-with-firm-performance

SEC Proposes New Rules For Linking Executive Pay With Firm Performance

Enormous pay packages for corporate chief executives whose companies are struggling have long been a source of outrage. Well, today, the Securities and Exchange Commission introduced a rule designed to help shareholders understand just how deserving a CEO really is. It was approved by a vote of 3 to 2. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: The rule grew out of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul bill. And it simply says that companies have to disclose whether executive pay tracks the firm's financial performance. This information is already available for people who want to pour through financial reports. The new law would simply require companies to put it in a form that's easier for shareholders to digest. Lynn Stout is a professor of corporate and business law at Cornell.