4 ms·

> Do you really argue that the people in the top 0.01% are contributing to society at a rate hundreds or thousands of times higher than the rest of the people?

by stale2002 7y ago

> Do you really argue that the people in the top 0.01% are contributing to society at a rate hundreds or thousands of times higher than the rest of the people? Yes. That is because of of the impact of their actions. Let's take the example of a CEO of a major company. The difference between a good CEO, and a great CEO might only change the value of a company by 1%. But 1% of a 100 billion dollar company, is 1 billion dollars. So if you are effecting a large enough company or area, then only being a little bit better than everyone else, turns out to be massively valuable, and therefore this value needs to be incentivized.

mistermann 7y ago
> Yes. That is because of of the impact of their actions. If you consider a measurement of their financial compensation to be proportional to their contribution to society. In reality, the actual impact of their actions is unknown - such things are beyond our ability to measure, we can only speculate. > therefore this value needs to be incentivized Technically, it doesn't need to be incentivized. Life would carry on if it wasn't, perhaps even with a better outcome. It is not possible to know what the outcome would be.
- stale2002 7y ago
  > such things are beyond our ability to measure, we can only speculate. Ok then. But that doesn't support the argument that compensation is too high. Maybe it isn't high enough, and should be even higher! I can use your unknown argument to support even higher compensation, just as much.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    > Ok then. But that doesn't support the argument that compensation is too high That is true, but I made no argument. You on the other hand, seemed to be explaining that such arguments are wrong, at least as I understood you. > I can use your unknown argument to support even higher compensation, just as much. Just as much, which is precisely zero. You seem to be claiming that they are producing value, that needs to be compensated. You have no evidence, yet you speak as if you do.
    - stale2002 7y ago
      No, everyone else in the thread was making a bunch of arguements about how CEOs are overpaid. That is the argument that requires justification. And the only claims that I make, are in response to other claims. I don't need to make any claims, if you aren't going to make any, because I can just stick with the status quo, merely because it is the status quo. The burden of proof is on the people who claim that the current status quo, of CEO compensation is for some reason, out of line. Because unless there is some good reason, it probably isn't, for the sole reason that it is the status quo. Other people are the ones making the claim here, that the current state of the world is for some reason wrong. It is perfectly fine, and normal, to assume that the status quo, for an arbitrary issue, is ok, in the absence of evidence that it is bad. The burden of proof is on the people who are claiming that the status quo is wrong, and needs to be changed. Why? Because in the vast majority of situations, the status quo is the status quo for a reason. Because if the status quo was wrong, then people would probably find a reason to change it, regarding any arbitrary issue. So I maintain that the burden of proof is on the people who want to change the status quo, not on the people who want to maintain it. There are a million different ways that we could change the world, and you have to make an argument for why we should make the change. And I cannot prove a negative here, as for why there are zero bad things about the status quo.
      - mistermann 7y ago
        >> You seem to be claiming that they are producing value, that needs to be compensated. You have no evidence, yet you speak as if you do. > No, everyone else in the thread was making a bunch of arguements about how CEOs are overpaid. That is the argument that requires justification. I'm confused. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21671403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21671403 >> Do you really argue that the people in the top 0.01% are contributing to society at a rate hundreds or thousands of times higher than the rest of the people? > (you) Yes. That is because of of the impact of their actions. Any chance you could clear up my confusion? You answered "yes" to the question "Do you really argue that the people in the top 0.01% are contributing to society at a rate hundreds or thousands of times higher than the rest of the people?", and yet now you seem to be claiming that you have not asserted that they are producing disproportionate value. > And the only claims that I make, are in response to other claims. They are still claims. > I don't need to make any claims But you did. > ... because I can just stick with the status quo, merely because it is the status quo. Then you should have done that, rather than falsely claiming you did it after the fact. > The burden of proof is on the people who claim that the current status quo, of CEO compensation is for some reason, out of line. True. It is also true that you have a burden of claim, because you also made an assertion. And so on and so forth.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    You cannot use someone's output to justify their compensation at all since you cannot measure it.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
blunte 7y ago
The executives of the big banks that caused the 2007/8 financial crisis... and cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions (in additional federal debt)... were they really contributing to society in line with their compensation? There are lots of examples of consistently bad or self-serving behavior of banks - banks which get special benefits from the people, including quantitative easing (essentially the ability to print money). I find it incredibly difficult to believe that they are contributing to society in line with their compensation. In fact, I believe in some cases it's the opposite.
- stale2002 7y ago
  Think of it more in terms of expected value. For example, it is possible that a worse executive would have had a higher chance of causing an even worse outcome than what happened. The point is that executive compensation is a drop in the bucket, compared to the value of a company as a whole. A CEO only has to have a slighter higher chance of getting a slightly better outcome, for the math to work out and the compensation to be worth it.

mistermann 7y ago

> Yes. That is because of of the impact of their actions. If you consider a measurement of their financial compensation to be proportional to their contribution to society. In reality, the actual impact of their actions is unknown - such things are beyond our ability to measure, we can only speculate. > therefore this value needs to be incentivized Technically, it doesn't need to be incentivized. Life would carry on if it wasn't, perhaps even with a better outcome. It is not possible to know what the outcome would be.

stale2002 7y ago
> such things are beyond our ability to measure, we can only speculate. Ok then. But that doesn't support the argument that compensation is too high. Maybe it isn't high enough, and should be even higher! I can use your unknown argument to support even higher compensation, just as much.
- mistermann 7y ago
  > Ok then. But that doesn't support the argument that compensation is too high That is true, but I made no argument. You on the other hand, seemed to be explaining that such arguments are wrong, at least as I understood you. > I can use your unknown argument to support even higher compensation, just as much. Just as much, which is precisely zero. You seem to be claiming that they are producing value, that needs to be compensated. You have no evidence, yet you speak as if you do.
  - stale2002 7y ago
    No, everyone else in the thread was making a bunch of arguements about how CEOs are overpaid. That is the argument that requires justification. And the only claims that I make, are in response to other claims. I don't need to make any claims, if you aren't going to make any, because I can just stick with the status quo, merely because it is the status quo. The burden of proof is on the people who claim that the current status quo, of CEO compensation is for some reason, out of line. Because unless there is some good reason, it probably isn't, for the sole reason that it is the status quo. Other people are the ones making the claim here, that the current state of the world is for some reason wrong. It is perfectly fine, and normal, to assume that the status quo, for an arbitrary issue, is ok, in the absence of evidence that it is bad. The burden of proof is on the people who are claiming that the status quo is wrong, and needs to be changed. Why? Because in the vast majority of situations, the status quo is the status quo for a reason. Because if the status quo was wrong, then people would probably find a reason to change it, regarding any arbitrary issue. So I maintain that the burden of proof is on the people who want to change the status quo, not on the people who want to maintain it. There are a million different ways that we could change the world, and you have to make an argument for why we should make the change. And I cannot prove a negative here, as for why there are zero bad things about the status quo.
    - mistermann 7y ago
      >> You seem to be claiming that they are producing value, that needs to be compensated. You have no evidence, yet you speak as if you do. > No, everyone else in the thread was making a bunch of arguements about how CEOs are overpaid. That is the argument that requires justification. I'm confused. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21671403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21671403 >> Do you really argue that the people in the top 0.01% are contributing to society at a rate hundreds or thousands of times higher than the rest of the people? > (you) Yes. That is because of of the impact of their actions. Any chance you could clear up my confusion? You answered "yes" to the question "Do you really argue that the people in the top 0.01% are contributing to society at a rate hundreds or thousands of times higher than the rest of the people?", and yet now you seem to be claiming that you have not asserted that they are producing disproportionate value. > And the only claims that I make, are in response to other claims. They are still claims. > I don't need to make any claims But you did. > ... because I can just stick with the status quo, merely because it is the status quo. Then you should have done that, rather than falsely claiming you did it after the fact. > The burden of proof is on the people who claim that the current status quo, of CEO compensation is for some reason, out of line. True. It is also true that you have a burden of claim, because you also made an assertion. And so on and so forth.
- anoncake 7y ago
  You cannot use someone's output to justify their compensation at all since you cannot measure it.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

blunte 7y ago

The executives of the big banks that caused the 2007/8 financial crisis... and cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions (in additional federal debt)... were they really contributing to society in line with their compensation? There are lots of examples of consistently bad or self-serving behavior of banks - banks which get special benefits from the people, including quantitative easing (essentially the ability to print money). I find it incredibly difficult to believe that they are contributing to society in line with their compensation. In fact, I believe in some cases it's the opposite.

stale2002 7y ago
Think of it more in terms of expected value. For example, it is possible that a worse executive would have had a higher chance of causing an even worse outcome than what happened. The point is that executive compensation is a drop in the bucket, compared to the value of a company as a whole. A CEO only has to have a slighter higher chance of getting a slightly better outcome, for the math to work out and the compensation to be worth it.