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Ben & Jerry's used to have a company policy that limited the pay of top employees to 5x an entry level employee. Of course it was dumb-foundingly stupid and th

Ben & Jerry's used to have a company policy that limited the pay of top employees to 5x an entry level employee. Of course it was dumb-foundingly stupid and they ultimately had to drop it when they were unable to find a CEO capable of managing a $75 million dollar company for $88,000 a year. The company suffered from mind-boggling mismanagement as some positions remained unfilled for years and were then often filled with grossly incompetent hires who were willing to work for such pay. We no longer live in a manufacturing economy. In service industries the value of an employee is almost entirely reflective of their responsibility and/or the amount of money they bring to a company. Most of you work in software... how much more valuable is a GREAT engineer vs a mediocre engineer... or an awful engineer? This is childish sophomoric ideological baloney based on jealousy, not on need. How many Swiss do you know that are dying of starvation or lack of health care? The world bank says the average income in sub Saharan Africa is a little over $1,300 a year. Maybe we should tie all out incomes to a maximum of 12x THAT number. Would that make the world more fair? Would that actually help anyone in Africa? Would it help economic development or encourage more people to start businesses? It is hard to see this stupid legislation as anything more that rich people in rich countries bitching that someone's Bentley is bigger than their Mercedes.

dnautics 13y ago
how about we let the citizenry do whatever we want and force the politicians to take a net salary that is 12x the sub-saharan africa value?
- brockers 13y ago
  That would have my vote
- rmc 13y ago
  Because then politicians would be considerably more likely to accept bribes, and only the uber rich, upper class, indenpendently wealthy people would be able to be politicians. The UK used to not pay MPs. In the 19th century there were working class movements for politicians to be paid ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartists ), so that working class people would be able to stand in parliament.,
  - dnautics 13y ago
    Because then politicians would be considerably more likely to accept bribes, and only the uber rich, upper class, indenpendently wealthy people would be able to be politicians. But that happens anyway. Look at the "socialist" president of France. Four houses (three holiday homes on the riviera), millions of euro personal wealth...
allochthon 13y ago
I'm going to go out on a limb and hazard a guess that this is a simplification of a more complex story about Ben and Jerry's in order to make a point about trying to constrain executive compensation.
- brockers 13y ago
  Your correct from that standpoint that all stories are simplifications of more complex realities. That said, Ben & Jerry's is used as a textbook example of the effects of untended consequences when attempting to artificially manipulate cost structures in a market economy. It is even arguable, these consequences directly caused Ben and Jerry to loose control of their own company. All that aside, I don't have a problem with curtailing executive compensation (for example CostCo does it in a way that maintains their corporate identity while allowing them to compete in their market.)

dnautics 13y ago

how about we let the citizenry do whatever we want and force the politicians to take a net salary that is 12x the sub-saharan africa value?

brockers 13y ago
That would have my vote
rmc 13y ago
Because then politicians would be considerably more likely to accept bribes, and only the uber rich, upper class, indenpendently wealthy people would be able to be politicians. The UK used to not pay MPs. In the 19th century there were working class movements for politicians to be paid ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartists ), so that working class people would be able to stand in parliament.,
- dnautics 13y ago
  Because then politicians would be considerably more likely to accept bribes, and only the uber rich, upper class, indenpendently wealthy people would be able to be politicians. But that happens anyway. Look at the "socialist" president of France. Four houses (three holiday homes on the riviera), millions of euro personal wealth...

allochthon 13y ago

I'm going to go out on a limb and hazard a guess that this is a simplification of a more complex story about Ben and Jerry's in order to make a point about trying to constrain executive compensation.

brockers 13y ago
Your correct from that standpoint that all stories are simplifications of more complex realities. That said, Ben & Jerry's is used as a textbook example of the effects of untended consequences when attempting to artificially manipulate cost structures in a market economy. It is even arguable, these consequences directly caused Ben and Jerry to loose control of their own company. All that aside, I don't have a problem with curtailing executive compensation (for example CostCo does it in a way that maintains their corporate identity while allowing them to compete in their market.)