Inequality in US may spur ‘terrible civil war’, says hedge fund billionaire
- Thread starter thecoder
- Start date
I didn't. Re-read my post again.
So is yours. LOL
DISADVANTAGED PEOPLE OF COLOR UNITE
I don't think anyone with two brain cells to rub together is going to deny that blacks faced systemic discrimination for centuries and to think it's all over because a half black guy who likes JayZ became president would be silly.
There's a bell curve there...so... no... the straight line $25M a year for Generals doesn't make sense to me. Anyone taking a CEO spot at a big bank is likely forgoing a much higher salary just as cabinet heads in gov't are usually taking drastic pay cuts. In return for that they are getting something in return - the ability to shape policy and the incredible power from running an agency (or a big bank). In gov't, those people are in the correct party and often friends of the chief and some are horribly unqualified.
With a big bank it's very different. The CEO needs to keep the BOD and shareholders happy and grow everything, adapt to changes and create value throughout. This is not some little game where the board and the CEO are chummy as everything is out in the open. This is the free market. If I'm on the board and I can get Blankfein or Dimon to run my bank for $1M a year, I'm doing it. It's the free market. I'm not saying that I agree they deserve more, but I agree with hearing the argument and not dismissing it because "all the rich are fat cats that don't pay their fair share and make too much" as the left loves to parrot. The more you make, the more risk you have of being undercut by someone equally as talented that will do your job for less. That's the free market and that's the way it should be.
Sometimes we post when we've had a little to drink or we're just off our game and later realize that what we said was so breathtakingly ignorant that we'd like to take it back. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that's what happened here.
Because surely, if you stopped and thought for even a few seconds about it, you wouldn't even consider advocating that General Milley, who is responsible for more than 1.3 million employees that his competition is literally trying to kill, and who answers to 100 Senators, 435 Representatives, and a President, who themselves are not in any way aligned, is in a job that somehow represents less effort and skill than poor little Blankfein who had to really earn his $25M managing his 40,000 employees because, what, he had a 13 member board, many of whom were long-time friends? Or Milley has "power" but the CEO of GS somehow does not, so that makes up for it all? Oh, and Milley only gets the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs job for 4 years and he's forced to retire no matter how well he does his job, Blankfein got to stay for 12 years at GS. I know you wouldn't say something that ignorant and frankly insulting if you'd spent any time thinking about it, would you?
Again, the question is if this is really a free market. Does JP Morgan really get 5x the return from Dimon at $31M vs the hundreds of other highly qualified, connected leaders who could just as easily do that job for $5M? Granted one has given up on the idiocy of asserting that running the military is some kind of child's play not equal to running a bank, are we really getting horrible leaders there because we pay them less than $250K/year and would "market forces" lead us to have 100 times better leaders if we increased their salary 100 times to match bank salaries?
Or have we fallen into this cult of the CEO where we decide we need to treat them like demigods and pander to their whims while in fact boards are, for whatever reason, not actually forcing CEO's to compete for their jobs and certainly not forcing them to compete on pay? How, exactly, does one of the top 100 folks at GS move up to the CEO role? By competition and free markets? If you believe that, then I've got some friends at GS who would be happy to disabuse you of that notion just as quickly as anyone who has served in the military will disabuse you of the notion that leading the military is some kind of "little game".
You have highlighted one thing... your general lack of understanding of how leadership actually works in these organizations.
Like everyone, you have an opinion. You also apparently have a clear disdain for corporate leadership. Arguing that someone paid 4 times as much should equate to 4X the performance is indicative of the banal tripe that helps the public develop unrealistic and overly simplistic negative views of some of the very institutions that keep the country on track.
Being angry is so much cooler than being informed today, so I'll leave you be.
Interestingly I'm a retired senior officer in the military and now CEO of a corporation. So yeah, I've got an opinion but it is based on first-hand experience, which normal people generally consider being "informed" and an "understanding of how leadership actually works in these organizations". What, exactly, is your opinion and vastly superior understanding "of how leadership actually works in these organizations" based on then? You read a book about it in one of your classes? Having read about something is so much cooler than actually having done it today, right?
It's interesting to see your response here. You made the completely asinine assertion that somehow running a bank is incredibly hard...because board members apparently, while running the largest military in the world is, apparently to you "some little game" by comparison. And when someone calls you on that bullshit, you don't even have the balls to defend your moronic assertion but instead launch into an absurd ad hominem attack with absolutely no actual content. Have you stopped to think why you would do that? Is that the kind of person you are, and is that actually effective at accomplishing anything?
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