5 ms·

We now apparently live in a bizzaro fantasy world where legislation is required to spare people the discomfort of negotiating a salary or asking for a raise. I

We now apparently live in a bizzaro fantasy world where legislation is required to spare people the discomfort of negotiating a salary or asking for a raise. If a company offered to pay you X and you agreed, whose fault is this? We used to call dealing with these kinds of situations "being an adult."

triceratops 5y ago
> If a company offered to pay you X and you agreed, whose fault is this? If you were forced to trade stocks for a living but had only second-hand access to price information ("My cousin bought some TSLA at $200/share last year") while all the brokerages share order flows in real time, would you say you're getting hosed? Or that it's a fair market?
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > If you were forced to trade stocks for a living Since you're not, the rest doesn't follow. For example, I played poker when I was younger. I routinely did much worse than mathematically expected. I suspect I was being cheated by the other players, but I wasn't savvy enough to know how they were cheating me. My solution was to stop playing poker. I know that when I trade stocks, I'm getting chiseled. So I don't day trade. I buy and hold, and rarely make a trade. Hence, the chiseling doesn't amount to much.
  - triceratops 5y ago
    > Since you're not, the rest doesn't follow. It's an analogy. "Trading stocks" is an analogy for "negotiating salary". Nearly everyone has to negotiate salary. > I wasn't savvy enough to know how they were cheating me. My solution was to stop playing poker. So you're saying people's options are to a) be cheated on salary or b) not work in paid employment? I respect that you have an opinion, but it's not an opinion that I have any respect for. > Hence, the chiseling doesn't amount to much Because we have open price sharing today and it's not possible to cheat you too much. You're benefiting from this even though you don't day trade. If we didn't have that, you and every other buy-and-holder would be shafted severely. Sidenote: I notice in many of your posts that you're a big proponent of free markets (which I mostly agree with). How do you square that belief with this one where one party, by design, has far less market information than the other? I'm genuinely curious about this, because it seems contradictory. (And yes, you might say "Companies choosing to share/not share salary is actually them competing on a free market", but that's an awfully limited viewpoint when we have other markets where prices are required to be open - such as real estate, and securities - without there being any suggestion that they aren't free markets)
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      > "negotiating salary" Negotiating is not "forced". Forced is the word you used. It is inapplicable and so your analogy simply doesn't follow. > So you're saying No, I'm not. I was pretty clear on what I said. You don't need to invent positions. > every other buy-and-holder would be shafted severely. Then the market wouldn't exist, and the market makers would either have to be more transparent about the price or find another business to be in. > How do you square that belief with this one where one party, by design, has far less market information than the other? People often have the notion that a functioning free market requires perfect information. I don't know where this notion comes from. But it is clearly false. One never has perfect information. In the marketplace, this lack of information is called "risk". The amount of risk is always factored into the price. That's why, for example, you'll pay more for a car from a dealer than from a private party. You're paying more for less of a risk. If you're investing, you expect higher returns for riskier investments, and lower returns for "safer" investments. Me (and you) will negotiate for a higher salary for a riskier job, and would accept a lower salary for a more reliable job. A company will offer a lower salary for a riskier employee. Again, lack of information is called "risk" and is part of the price of everything you buy and sell.
      - triceratops 5y ago
        > Negotiating is not "forced". Other than starting their own business (which most people don't or can't do), how else do you propose people earn livelihoods? > People often have the notion that a functioning free market requires perfect information I didn't say "perfect information". Institutional investors have access to snap quotes accurate to a few milliseconds. Retail investors get delayed information. Information asymmetry is a spectrum. The stock market is on one end, and the job market is close to the other end (I can only think of healthcare pricing in the US that's worse than that). Risk only matters when comparing two otherwise-similar employees. Otherwise supply and demand are the dominant factors in pricing. Hiring someone to make sandwiches is very low risk (you can easily verify that they make good sandwiches) compared to hiring a software developer (any interview process gives imperfect signal). And yet the sandwich artist gets paid less than the developer. I ask you again: would you participate in a real estate market where you could only find out prices by asking friends and family, while the other side (let's say all institutional sellers) can share lots of information with each other? Would you invest in a stock market like that? Would it be good for you? Would you think it's fair? What if it was the only way to obtain housing (short of building your own house)? It's really weird that you're against legislation requiring market participants to receive more information. Perfect information isn't possible, but why is more information bad? Anyway, that's all I'll say on the topic.
pessimizer 5y ago
The company is 100 people and you are one person. If the company had a union, it would be easy to call the union and get accurate figures.
slg 5y ago
This exact same logic could be used to advocate against a minimum wage or really any employee protections. If I am an adult agreeing to go to work in a sweatshop, why is the government stopping me? Because the government recognizes that I am only agreeing because the power imbalance my employer has over me is a form of coercion.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  If you've ever been an employer, you'd know that you have exactly zero power over your employees. They can and do quit whenever it strikes their fancy. Employee turnover is a constant problem for every business. This applies to min wage workers on up to million dollar workers. The only real difference is the million dollar ones give notice, and the min wage workers just stop showing up.
  - slg 5y ago
    >If you've ever been an employer, you'd know that you have exactly zero power over your employees. This is a statement totally disconnected from reality for most Americans. Over half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Over half of Americans get their medical insurance through their employer. These two facts mean that most Americans do not have the financial security to quit a job without having another one already lined up.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      So go line up another job and then quit.
      - slg 5y ago
        The ease of that depends on a lot of details that are outside the control of that individual person.

triceratops 5y ago

> If a company offered to pay you X and you agreed, whose fault is this? If you were forced to trade stocks for a living but had only second-hand access to price information ("My cousin bought some TSLA at $200/share last year") while all the brokerages share order flows in real time, would you say you're getting hosed? Or that it's a fair market?

WalterBright 5y ago
> If you were forced to trade stocks for a living Since you're not, the rest doesn't follow. For example, I played poker when I was younger. I routinely did much worse than mathematically expected. I suspect I was being cheated by the other players, but I wasn't savvy enough to know how they were cheating me. My solution was to stop playing poker. I know that when I trade stocks, I'm getting chiseled. So I don't day trade. I buy and hold, and rarely make a trade. Hence, the chiseling doesn't amount to much.
- triceratops 5y ago
  > Since you're not, the rest doesn't follow. It's an analogy. "Trading stocks" is an analogy for "negotiating salary". Nearly everyone has to negotiate salary. > I wasn't savvy enough to know how they were cheating me. My solution was to stop playing poker. So you're saying people's options are to a) be cheated on salary or b) not work in paid employment? I respect that you have an opinion, but it's not an opinion that I have any respect for. > Hence, the chiseling doesn't amount to much Because we have open price sharing today and it's not possible to cheat you too much. You're benefiting from this even though you don't day trade. If we didn't have that, you and every other buy-and-holder would be shafted severely. Sidenote: I notice in many of your posts that you're a big proponent of free markets (which I mostly agree with). How do you square that belief with this one where one party, by design, has far less market information than the other? I'm genuinely curious about this, because it seems contradictory. (And yes, you might say "Companies choosing to share/not share salary is actually them competing on a free market", but that's an awfully limited viewpoint when we have other markets where prices are required to be open - such as real estate, and securities - without there being any suggestion that they aren't free markets)
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > "negotiating salary" Negotiating is not "forced". Forced is the word you used. It is inapplicable and so your analogy simply doesn't follow. > So you're saying No, I'm not. I was pretty clear on what I said. You don't need to invent positions. > every other buy-and-holder would be shafted severely. Then the market wouldn't exist, and the market makers would either have to be more transparent about the price or find another business to be in. > How do you square that belief with this one where one party, by design, has far less market information than the other? People often have the notion that a functioning free market requires perfect information. I don't know where this notion comes from. But it is clearly false. One never has perfect information. In the marketplace, this lack of information is called "risk". The amount of risk is always factored into the price. That's why, for example, you'll pay more for a car from a dealer than from a private party. You're paying more for less of a risk. If you're investing, you expect higher returns for riskier investments, and lower returns for "safer" investments. Me (and you) will negotiate for a higher salary for a riskier job, and would accept a lower salary for a more reliable job. A company will offer a lower salary for a riskier employee. Again, lack of information is called "risk" and is part of the price of everything you buy and sell.
    - triceratops 5y ago
      > Negotiating is not "forced". Other than starting their own business (which most people don't or can't do), how else do you propose people earn livelihoods? > People often have the notion that a functioning free market requires perfect information I didn't say "perfect information". Institutional investors have access to snap quotes accurate to a few milliseconds. Retail investors get delayed information. Information asymmetry is a spectrum. The stock market is on one end, and the job market is close to the other end (I can only think of healthcare pricing in the US that's worse than that). Risk only matters when comparing two otherwise-similar employees. Otherwise supply and demand are the dominant factors in pricing. Hiring someone to make sandwiches is very low risk (you can easily verify that they make good sandwiches) compared to hiring a software developer (any interview process gives imperfect signal). And yet the sandwich artist gets paid less than the developer. I ask you again: would you participate in a real estate market where you could only find out prices by asking friends and family, while the other side (let's say all institutional sellers) can share lots of information with each other? Would you invest in a stock market like that? Would it be good for you? Would you think it's fair? What if it was the only way to obtain housing (short of building your own house)? It's really weird that you're against legislation requiring market participants to receive more information. Perfect information isn't possible, but why is more information bad? Anyway, that's all I'll say on the topic.

pessimizer 5y ago

The company is 100 people and you are one person. If the company had a union, it would be easy to call the union and get accurate figures.

slg 5y ago

This exact same logic could be used to advocate against a minimum wage or really any employee protections. If I am an adult agreeing to go to work in a sweatshop, why is the government stopping me? Because the government recognizes that I am only agreeing because the power imbalance my employer has over me is a form of coercion.

WalterBright 5y ago
If you've ever been an employer, you'd know that you have exactly zero power over your employees. They can and do quit whenever it strikes their fancy. Employee turnover is a constant problem for every business. This applies to min wage workers on up to million dollar workers. The only real difference is the million dollar ones give notice, and the min wage workers just stop showing up.
- slg 5y ago
  >If you've ever been an employer, you'd know that you have exactly zero power over your employees. This is a statement totally disconnected from reality for most Americans. Over half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Over half of Americans get their medical insurance through their employer. These two facts mean that most Americans do not have the financial security to quit a job without having another one already lined up.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    So go line up another job and then quit.
    - slg 5y ago
      The ease of that depends on a lot of details that are outside the control of that individual person.