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> Also if Google's CEO took a big pay cut and distributed the cut to all the employees, they might not even notice it Google's CEO distributing his bonus would

by HWR_14 4y ago

> Also if Google's CEO took a big pay cut and distributed the cut to all the employees, they might not even notice it Google's CEO distributing his bonus would have worked out to an extra $3,000/each in 2018 (the easiest recent numbers to find). That's assuming that all employees got an even share. > emotional appeals to "fairness." There's reasons to want fairness that have nothing to do with emotion.

SoftTalker 4y ago
> There's reasons to want fairness that have nothing to do with emotion. Such as? The whole basis of fairness is emotion, mostly rooted in jealousy and envy. It ignores that people have different skills, abilities, intellect, drive, tenacity, etc. and says that everyone deserves the same outcomes.
- DragonStrength 4y ago
  Fairness is precisely about putting aside things which would bias one to things which are not related to performance. My experience is people who are used to relying on privilege view fairness unfavorably because the alternative is admitting they don't measure up to others.
- mantas 4y ago
  Fairness does not mean same pay. Maybe it's my ex-USSR background, but fairness involves paying according to skills/abilities/etc. But it's rare that skills/abilities/whatever differs 100x.
- happytoexplain 4y ago
  This seems like a simple semantic disagreement (and a kind of baffling one, frankly). Particularly cartoonish CEOs might think the word "fair" is code for "everybody in the world gets exactly the same of everything", but the vast majority of people use the word colloquially to include some degree of intuition and rationality and holism (like most words in normal conversation). E.g. almost nobody believes that all human beings should be paid the same salary no matter what they do, yet most people believe that everybody should get "what's fair", for whatever they subjectively believe is fair.
notch656a 4y ago
That assumes that a CEO with this bonus incentive removed would perform as well and bring in the profit that enables that $3000 /ea . Perhaps that's correct but that would be quite the claim that demands proof. I'm no economist but I would indeed be interested in seeing the studies that show CEOs performance is just as good or better when his/her bonus is taken and then redistributed to everyone else. It's certainly an interesting incentive model.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  I have no idea why my claim would demand proof. In fact, I'll start by demanding proof from you that CEO performance is in any way correlated to compensation.
- danaris 4y ago
  And how, exactly, would you be able to tell? Isn't the standard measure of CEO performance "did the stock price meet expectations for the quarter"? A measure which has a myriad of different factors far outside the CEO's control affecting it—as well as a number of factors in the CEO's control that have very little to do with the actual health of the company. Furthermore, it's not at all uncommon for a very good leader to leave (dies, retires, steps down to go do something more fun, forced out by someone who wants to be their successor, whatever), and their successor to inherit a very healthy company with strong fundamentals and good people at various levels...and proceed to do bugger-all for several years and still be hailed as a great leader because the health of a company is very often a trailing indicator of leadership competence.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    That's exactly my point. There's no way, I don't think, we can say if we redistributed the CEOs bonus that that $3,000 would still be there. We need some evidence to show the factors leading up to the availability of those $3,000 would still be intact with the bonus incentive removed. One could make the completely unfounded conjecture that perhaps everyone would make $3,000 LESS if the CEO didn't have a bonus incentive. Now that would not be supported by any facts, but then again neither is the suggestion you can just nix the CEO bonus incentive and expect the performance to support that $3000/ea extra money still being there. Remember wealth doesn't have to be zero-sum.

by HWR_14 4y ago

SoftTalker 4y ago

> There's reasons to want fairness that have nothing to do with emotion. Such as? The whole basis of fairness is emotion, mostly rooted in jealousy and envy. It ignores that people have different skills, abilities, intellect, drive, tenacity, etc. and says that everyone deserves the same outcomes.

DragonStrength 4y ago
Fairness is precisely about putting aside things which would bias one to things which are not related to performance. My experience is people who are used to relying on privilege view fairness unfavorably because the alternative is admitting they don't measure up to others.
mantas 4y ago
Fairness does not mean same pay. Maybe it's my ex-USSR background, but fairness involves paying according to skills/abilities/etc. But it's rare that skills/abilities/whatever differs 100x.
happytoexplain 4y ago
This seems like a simple semantic disagreement (and a kind of baffling one, frankly). Particularly cartoonish CEOs might think the word "fair" is code for "everybody in the world gets exactly the same of everything", but the vast majority of people use the word colloquially to include some degree of intuition and rationality and holism (like most words in normal conversation). E.g. almost nobody believes that all human beings should be paid the same salary no matter what they do, yet most people believe that everybody should get "what's fair", for whatever they subjectively believe is fair.

notch656a 4y ago

That assumes that a CEO with this bonus incentive removed would perform as well and bring in the profit that enables that $3000 /ea . Perhaps that's correct but that would be quite the claim that demands proof. I'm no economist but I would indeed be interested in seeing the studies that show CEOs performance is just as good or better when his/her bonus is taken and then redistributed to everyone else. It's certainly an interesting incentive model.

HWR_14 4y ago
I have no idea why my claim would demand proof. In fact, I'll start by demanding proof from you that CEO performance is in any way correlated to compensation.
danaris 4y ago
And how, exactly, would you be able to tell? Isn't the standard measure of CEO performance "did the stock price meet expectations for the quarter"? A measure which has a myriad of different factors far outside the CEO's control affecting it—as well as a number of factors in the CEO's control that have very little to do with the actual health of the company. Furthermore, it's not at all uncommon for a very good leader to leave (dies, retires, steps down to go do something more fun, forced out by someone who wants to be their successor, whatever), and their successor to inherit a very healthy company with strong fundamentals and good people at various levels...and proceed to do bugger-all for several years and still be hailed as a great leader because the health of a company is very often a trailing indicator of leadership competence.
- notch656a 4y ago
  That's exactly my point. There's no way, I don't think, we can say if we redistributed the CEOs bonus that that $3,000 would still be there. We need some evidence to show the factors leading up to the availability of those $3,000 would still be intact with the bonus incentive removed. One could make the completely unfounded conjecture that perhaps everyone would make $3,000 LESS if the CEO didn't have a bonus incentive. Now that would not be supported by any facts, but then again neither is the suggestion you can just nix the CEO bonus incentive and expect the performance to support that $3000/ea extra money still being there. Remember wealth doesn't have to be zero-sum.