5 ms·

Are you seriously advocating for companies to collude to suppress salaries if they can't handle the heat of market forces? How much, exactly, do you think engin

Are you seriously advocating for companies to collude to suppress salaries if they can't handle the heat of market forces? How much, exactly, do you think engineers deserve to get before it becomes "too much", how did you arrive at that number, and do you have a similar number for how much companies should be allowed to make before we just start confiscating it all with a 100% tax rate?

EGreg 13y ago
Looks like you're attacking a straw man. I am not quite sure how you get from companies advertising jobs and accepting employees (but not calling them while they are at work at another company) to salaries being depressed. Can you elaborate on a specific case? Say Jane is happy at company X, but wants to see if she can get a higher salary. She goes outside or surfs online and bam, company Y is hiring. She INQUIRES and APPLIES and says she wants a higher salary. She is offered this salary by company Y. She quits and gets a higher salary. Are you saying salaries are depressed from being EVEN HIGHER from companies actively calling employees of other companies so they can disrupt their projects midstream and lure away those employees? If men actively tried to seduce each other's wives every chance they got, would that improve the deal of the wives?
- nknighthb 13y ago
  They were specifically agreeing not to engage in normal competitive practices against one another. They were agreeing not to compete with one another for engineers. Jane might be free to offer her services to other companies, but what if she hadn't gone looking? She might not even know it was likely that she could get a better salary, or she might not have spotted a job posting particularly suited to her. The companies suppressed a form of competition to further their own interests, with the inevitable effect that salaries were also suppressed, because the market was not as competitive as it would otherwise have been. That is illegal, and has been for more than a century.
  - EGreg 13y ago
    You haven't explained why men seducing each other's wives at every opportunity would lead to better deals for them and their wives. It's not about offers it's about advertising in unwelcome places. You are claiming that ANY agreement not to engage in unwelcome behavior decreases competition and therefore leads to a worse deal for the other parties. So basically can you take it to its logical conclusion... us agreeing to not destroy each other's reputation through NSA-type sabotage is actually a cartel? Us agreeing not to sabotage each other's operations through corporate espionage before 1995 and other legal means is a cartel?
    - sheepmullet 13y ago
      He hasn't explained because it is a ridiculous comparison. Husband and wife relationships are long term loving partnerships. Employer-employee relationships are business transactions. A good husband/wife shares rewards fairly equally. An employer rarely distributes profit equally. A good husband/wife team both have a large degree of autonomy and decision making power. In an employee-employer relationship this power predominantly resides with the employer. A good husband/wife stands by their partner in times of trouble. An employer will happily jettison under-performing employees. A good husband/wife will sacrifice some level of material comfort in order to help their partner improve themselves. Employers will not provide training etc unless it is in their best short term interests. Etc etc etc. Fact is jobs are nothing like marriage. Likewise it is not about advertising in unwelcome places. Google is not advertising to Apple; they are advertising to individuals who happen to work at Apple. The party, Apple, that considers it unwelcome is a third party to the advertising. It is frankly none of their business. It is unwelcome to Apple because it stops them from underpaying their staff. And finally there is a big difference between actions that enhance the market and allow it to operate efficiently and negative market actions. If you are worth $200,000 to Apple but only $100,000 to Google then it is a better allocation of capital for you to work at Apple. If you are worth that money to Google then they can easily counter offer. This aids market efficiency which is the driver of all our economic growth. This is completely different from trying to steal key players simply to harm your competition. But stopping this key player theft is actually easy via legal and ethical market mechanisms (e.g. vesting options, bonuses on successful completion of key deliverables, fully funded non-competes, actually paying market wages etc).

EGreg 13y ago

Looks like you're attacking a straw man. I am not quite sure how you get from companies advertising jobs and accepting employees (but not calling them while they are at work at another company) to salaries being depressed. Can you elaborate on a specific case? Say Jane is happy at company X, but wants to see if she can get a higher salary. She goes outside or surfs online and bam, company Y is hiring. She INQUIRES and APPLIES and says she wants a higher salary. She is offered this salary by company Y. She quits and gets a higher salary. Are you saying salaries are depressed from being EVEN HIGHER from companies actively calling employees of other companies so they can disrupt their projects midstream and lure away those employees? If men actively tried to seduce each other's wives every chance they got, would that improve the deal of the wives?

nknighthb 13y ago
They were specifically agreeing not to engage in normal competitive practices against one another. They were agreeing not to compete with one another for engineers. Jane might be free to offer her services to other companies, but what if she hadn't gone looking? She might not even know it was likely that she could get a better salary, or she might not have spotted a job posting particularly suited to her. The companies suppressed a form of competition to further their own interests, with the inevitable effect that salaries were also suppressed, because the market was not as competitive as it would otherwise have been. That is illegal, and has been for more than a century.
- EGreg 13y ago
  You haven't explained why men seducing each other's wives at every opportunity would lead to better deals for them and their wives. It's not about offers it's about advertising in unwelcome places. You are claiming that ANY agreement not to engage in unwelcome behavior decreases competition and therefore leads to a worse deal for the other parties. So basically can you take it to its logical conclusion... us agreeing to not destroy each other's reputation through NSA-type sabotage is actually a cartel? Us agreeing not to sabotage each other's operations through corporate espionage before 1995 and other legal means is a cartel?
  - sheepmullet 13y ago
    He hasn't explained because it is a ridiculous comparison. Husband and wife relationships are long term loving partnerships. Employer-employee relationships are business transactions. A good husband/wife shares rewards fairly equally. An employer rarely distributes profit equally. A good husband/wife team both have a large degree of autonomy and decision making power. In an employee-employer relationship this power predominantly resides with the employer. A good husband/wife stands by their partner in times of trouble. An employer will happily jettison under-performing employees. A good husband/wife will sacrifice some level of material comfort in order to help their partner improve themselves. Employers will not provide training etc unless it is in their best short term interests. Etc etc etc. Fact is jobs are nothing like marriage. Likewise it is not about advertising in unwelcome places. Google is not advertising to Apple; they are advertising to individuals who happen to work at Apple. The party, Apple, that considers it unwelcome is a third party to the advertising. It is frankly none of their business. It is unwelcome to Apple because it stops them from underpaying their staff. And finally there is a big difference between actions that enhance the market and allow it to operate efficiently and negative market actions. If you are worth $200,000 to Apple but only $100,000 to Google then it is a better allocation of capital for you to work at Apple. If you are worth that money to Google then they can easily counter offer. This aids market efficiency which is the driver of all our economic growth. This is completely different from trying to steal key players simply to harm your competition. But stopping this key player theft is actually easy via legal and ethical market mechanisms (e.g. vesting options, bonuses on successful completion of key deliverables, fully funded non-competes, actually paying market wages etc).