4 ms·

I'm likely going to get flamed for this but its just an opinion... These types of articles always imply there is a smokey back room of fat cats that are plotti

• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• shzusnwxbwj 4y ago
• lovich 4y ago
  Have you ever been in a management position? That's a legitimate question and not trying to be argumentative. I ask because I was surprised and appalled after getting into management and almost immediately being included in meetings whose sole goal was to discuss ways to squeeze the employees more or cut back on their total comp in a way that they wouldn't immediately notice. These weren't even "fat cats", these were just execs working at regular companies who were making less than what I've seen reported as FAANG total comp for engineers in their second year. It wasn't even effective for producing greater productivity as any engineer with talent moved on for a better paying job or, if they were talented enough, moved to a FAANG where they rationally offered better rewards for better output. There is a cultural standard in many American corporations where the executives and management class below them seek to squeeze every ounce of blood from their employees not because it is a rational choice for improving profit, but because merely because they can. My take on it so far has been that at some point in the past this _was_ actually a rational choice because there was a lot of value being paid out to employees, but the employee base has been squeezed of all excess for so long that most executives are just cargo culting based on what their predecessors did.
  • lumost 4y ago
    > most executives are just cargo culting based on what their predecessors did. It's underappreciated the extent to which the average business is simply mirroring the practices which were common previously. The golden ticket outside of digital for the last ~50 years in American business has been cost cutting. This meant squeezing employees, making larger businesses with theoretically better economies of scale, and increased outsourcing.
• pdimitar 4y ago
  You sound like a rent seeker who, you know, is seeking for more rent. I urge you to think of the people and not only of your investment portfolio. A lot of good honest people out there are periodically told they are not doing enough while they have been on the brink for years. Would you want that for your parents? Would you want increased stock profits on the back of millions of families?
• imtringued 4y ago
  I hope everyone is aware that the origin of capitalism is liquidity preference in combination with a permanent money system aka 0% interest on cash. What this means is that everyone, even the poorest people on earth are capitalists, they just have very little influence over the economy and they gain very little from it. The only difference between the poorest and the richest is the order of magnitude. Millions of tiny little "schemers" can be worth thousands of millionaires. The prisoners dilemma works as follows. People have the option to consume and invest or to save money. The goal is to create a bigger stockpile of money just in case the rest of the economy decides to abandon you. This means people prefer retiring at the end of their life rather than taking a few years off in their younger years. As people save more and more there has to be more debt as well to prevent deflation. People are worried that they end up being the one in debt so in response they start saving too. If everyone starts saving, and nobody consumes or invests the economy reaches a standstill. So no, the problem isn't buying stocks. As ironic as it might sound, that is the "anti-capitalist" part. Capitalism's defining feature is a prisoners dilemma where people are saving without investing, resulting in a constant need for more public sector debt.
  • wahnfrieden 4y ago
    This is why organizing is so powerful (and obviously the rich are also organizing)