2 ms·
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
by 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 agoThink 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.