Obama new cause for poverty in America?

[Zkribbler]

Again, there's no requirrement that these companies take the loans. They can always go bankrupt and pay their folks $0.

But why should my tax dollars go to support some plutocrat who think he's entitled to a salary OVER $500,000?? If the company wants to pay an employee more that $500,000, let the company earn the money to pay him, not borrow the money from me.

[MRT144]

Again, there's no requirrement that these companies take the loans. They can always go bankrupt and pay their folks $0.

But why should my tax dollars go to support some plutocrat who think he's entitled to a salary OVER $500,000?? If the company wants to pay an employee more that $500,000, let the company earn the money to pay him, not borrow the money from me.

Actually Paulson forced many of the companies to take TARP because if you only gave loans to the ones that were hurting, they would have faced even more pressure (or so the story goes).

And even then how is the failing of another person a reason to penalize everyone at a company?

And why should my tax dollars go to support anything I don't like?

[Zkribbler]

And even then how is the failing of another person a reason to penalize everyone at a company?

I thought a company is like a team. It profits or fails as a unit.

The American people will not sit still while its tax money is syphoned off by the privileged rich. It is not a "penalty" if the American people (via their goverment) decides to loan its money only to company's which have reasonable compensation levels for its executives. And once again, if the company doesn't want to accept the loan on the conditions, no one is making them.

Do you realize how ridiculous this conversation is?

I hear "conservatives" arguing that, while there isn't enough money for health care reform, for public schools, for repairing our infrastructure, for pensions for public employees, for Social Security, for Medicare and/or for fighting global warming, there is enough money to subsidize the salaries of plutocrats making over $500,000/year.

[MRT144]

Why not just jack up tax rates for income and capital gains on people over a certain amount? That make a lot more money for the tax payer.

[KrazyHorse]

Perhaps a bit of a stretch. But the point is that their are replacements out there and not so many positions.



No.

Then what the hell ARE you claiming, you jackass?

If they get paid according to their marginal productivity (in other words the difference in value to the firm between them and the next most qualified applicant is greater than or equal to difference in pay between these two individuals) then the firm is SIMPLY HURTING ITSELF by cutting pay and causing the employee to leave. The money they save in pay will be more than lost by the money they lose in revenue. If this is NOT true then corps. are simply giant charities for top-paid employees.

[KrazyHorse]

How is a profitable trader responsible for the losses of another trader. Pay regulation is stupid and punitive.

Urg. Thanks for quoting Zkribby, you jackass.

Zkribby, you ****ing idiot, there are TONS of non-execs who make more than 500k a year. Loads of traders, managing directors (in charge of, say, 10-20 people), and even some people who aren't traders and have absolutely no management responsibilities (people at "VP" level in an I-Bank, which is NOT an exec. position, but is simply one step up from "associate", and comes with 3-4 years experience and an MBA/PhD)

The reason these people need to get paid is NOT because you should like them, or it's fair. It's that they are of VALUE to the firms which the bailout loans were supposedly trying to help. Citi and BoA are pieces of ****, and if it was decided that they should simply be allowed to fail then fine. I don't agree with that, because I think losing a couple of banks with trillions in assets would have devastating effects on the real economy, no matter how gracefully the bankruptcy was handled. But IF you're going to help them, then you shouldn't be helping them with one hand and crushing their nuts with the other. What's going to happen is the worst of both worlds; the people who CAN get other, better paying jobs elsewhere will leave. These are the ones who REALLY earn their keep. Other firms want them at their high salary/bonus because they're ****ing money machines. The only people who stay will be those who CAN'T get another job at better pay. Probably because they're overpaid where they are now.

Do you know who this helps? Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, etc. All the firms NOT subject to pay regulations now get to poach all the people who are, and TARP money in BoA and Citi means that they'll be kept alive long enough for these firms to tear the **** out of the corpses of the TARP firms.

[DaShi]

Now you're assuming that they are guaranteed to generate more revenues than the next applicant in a system that can go up and down regardless of what they do. I believe that they are overpaid for simply pushing money around, but that's my opinion and you have your own reasons why they aren't (hell, so do the companies), which is understandable. But to believe that a company is a rational organization that only hires the best and brightest is little different than believing that every moron who goes to an Ivy League school is worthy to work at such a company.

[KrazyHorse]

Why not just jack up tax rates for income and capital gains on people over a certain amount? That make a lot more money for the tax payer.

The only problem I have with very, very high rates of taxation on high incomes is an empirical one. The question is what the labor supply curve looks like at that high a level of income. It's fairly obvious that, at least in the short run, the US is NOT currently on the wrong side of the Laffer curve for these incomes (though it may have been when the top federal marginal rates were at or above 70%). However, as you get higher and higher up in marginal rates you begin to destroy x$ in economic activity for every dollar in additional revenue you collect, where x is much more than one. Also, it should be noted that there are parts of the income distribution which are likely on the wrong side of the curve, once benefit phase-out is accounted for.

On the other hand, I have a serious problem with capital gains taxation. Taxing capital gains introduces a distortion between saving and spending, and almost certainly significantly reduces long-run growth. Thankfully, IRAs provide an avoidance mechanism, but this is only a stopgap measure.

[KrazyHorse]

Now you're assuming that they are guaranteed to generate more revenues than the next applicant in a system that can go up and down regardless of what they do.

a) No, you ****ing dolt, it's not what they're GUARANTEED to do, it's what they're LIKELY to do.

b) I SPECIFICALLY asked you if you were denying this, and you seemed to deny your denial. If these guys do NOT make more money for the company than their lower-paid replacements then they are NOTHING BUT CHARITY CASES. Firms which pay their star employees less should be at a competitive advantage to firms who have high pay, since they can apparently get comparable talent at much lower pay. If you want to claim that, then go ahead. It's a very difficult assertion to prove wrong, because you're simply denying that many decades of competition between firms has failed to demonstrate the wisdom of skimping on pay.

[KrazyHorse]

b) So you're simply denying that they do anything of a value to the firm commensurate with their pay. Top-paid employees are charity cases.

No.

Make up your ****ing mind.

[DaShi]

I agree that they bring value to the firm. I just think that they are overpaid. It's more of a system problem than an individual firms problem. It's certainly not the employees fault that the firm is willing to pay them so much.

[KrazyHorse]

So you're simply denying that they do anything of a value to the firm commensurate with their pay

[DaShi]

Actually, what I said there is that they can be replaced.

[KrazyHorse]

OMFG. My statement was about margins, not about absolute values, insofar as such a thing can even be measured

That should have been clear to you on both basic economics grounds, as well as due to my other posts in this thread.

[DaShi]

Whatever.