6 ms·

I love the line "This is a normal practice". Perhaps what is being called into question here is the acceptance of these normal practices...?

• diminoten 8y ago
  Why is there anything wrong with this? The value of these people, to this company, is very high. People complain all the time about not being compensated relative to their value to the company, but when people are compensated relative to their value, people still complain. There's no win.
  • jjeaff 8y ago
    Everyone thinks everyone should be compensated according to their value... Unless someone else's value is way more than their own.
    • nitrogen 8y ago
      Fair compensation also requires fair opportunity to increase one's own value. For most of us, there is no path that leads from "valuable employee" to "indispensable executive", which is where I think some frustration is justified.
      • 83457 8y ago
        Using the word "opportunity" is debatable here. Only so many people can be executives. Just because most don't have the abilities to be an executive doesn't mean they don't have the same oppurtunity.
        • manicdee 8y ago
          Most executives don’t have the abilities to be an employee. The main limit to executive entry is having access to an executive vacancy. The short version is that if you are an honest hard working employee that access will never be available to you.
      • diminoten 8y ago
        Absolutely not. In no way should an unskilled worker ever be able to elevate to a skilled position other than through becoming skilled. You're acting like running a large business isn't a skilled position. It very much is. A janitor at a hospital cannot become head surgeon by continuing to work as a janitor, and while a janitor is critically important to the hospital, the supply of janitors is such that the pay will never compare to that of the head of the surgical staff.
        • nitrogen 8y ago
          What I am saying, in the terms of your example, is there is no viable path for most janitors, even if they had all of the necessary intelligence and ambition, to become surgeons. The typical path to surgeon might look something like this: High school -> Pre-med -> Med school -> etc. -> surgeon The path from janitor to surgeon might look like this: High school -> Married -> Janitor -> Family -> Quit job to go back to school -> bankruptcy, divorce -> janitor To return to the topic at hand, it's entirely fair for top executives (or surgeons, etc.) to be paid their value, but only if it's also possible for others to try to achieve the same value. Path dependence breaks fairness.
          • diminoten 8y ago
            The fairness of one act does not depend on the fairness of another act. It is not unfair to pay executives their worth because you don't pay janitors their worth. Those two things are completely unrelated.
            • nitrogen 8y ago
              Acts do not occur in a vacuum. Especially with regard to economic inequality. And why the fixation on janitors? I never said janitors should be paid like executives, only that the paths to higher paying positions need to be more widely available.
              • diminoten 8y ago
                Need to be? Or else compensation isn't fair? No, that's wrong. The concept that everyone needs to be able to be obscenely wealthy or else obscene wealth is inherently unfair makes sense only if you believe everyone is entitled to everything, which simply isn't true. Everyone is entitled to some things, but no one is entitled to everything.
• jjeaff 8y ago
  If this company owes you money, would you prefer that the core executive team stays around and brings in an extra $200m in revenue during the wind down even though you'll have to pay them $20m to stay? Or just fire everyone, and make nothing?
  • michaelt 8y ago
    I'd prefer that executive compensation above a certain threshold was held in trust for 5 years, and clawed back under certain circumstances. That way the core executive team would be motivated to bring in the extra $200 million _without_ requiring huge bonus payouts for failure.
    • eecc 8y ago
      I think your statement is the sanest I've read in years within the context of similar discussions about corporate. It's a bit shocking that most other answers seem to accept and justify this status-quo without a flinch.
  • cameldrv 8y ago
    True, but the effect is to incentivize the type of behavior that the recent Sears management engaged in. It's like having a policy of paying ransom to kidnappers. There's no reason that U.S. bankruptcy law has to allow for this.