Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Real change would involve a scenario in which you earn about 30% less than now, and there are minimal if any future increases for you. You good with that?

When you pitch yourself do you let everyone know that you are the absolute world champion of pulling ridiculous, made-up bullshit out of your surely already overly-stretched out asshole?

Real change would involve rethinking all kinds of corporate subsidies and a reduction in defense and incarceration spending and an actual investment in our infrastructure and health and other safety net systems.

TM

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

When you pitch yourself do you let everyone know that you are the absolute world champion of pulling ridiculous, made-up bullshit out of your surely already overly-stretched out asshole?

TM

He used to, but that got kind of long-winded. Now he just has "24-7-365 Bloviation" tattooed on his forehead. Helvetica font. It doesn't convey the same nuance as his prior pitch, but it gets the point across.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

He used to, but that got kind of long-winded. Now he just has "24-7-365 Bloviation" tattooed on his forehead. Helvetica font. It doesn't convey the same nuance as his prior pitch, but it gets the point across.

When everyone is paid according to their intrinsic value, there'll be a lot fewer people working for companies, and there'll be more artists, and cooler fonts than Helvetica (imagine!). Information only wants to be free because it's intrinsic value isn't recognized.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

When everyone is paid according to their intrinsic value, there'll be a lot fewer people working for companies, and there'll be more artists, and cooler fonts than Helvetica (imagine!). Information only wants to be free because it's intrinsic value isn't recognized.

Careful what you wish for, if I’m only paid what I’m worth I can’t spend time giving you free legal advice on the phone.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

When everyone is paid according to their intrinsic value, there'll be a lot fewer people working for companies, and there'll be more artists, and cooler fonts than Helvetica (imagine!). Information only wants to be free because it's intrinsic value isn't recognized.

Oooh, dazzling them with Marxist economics. Tell me, how do you relate the extraction of surplus labor value to intrinsic value? Must you always extract some surplus labor value to deal with transaction costs or do costs associated with trading and monetizing the product of labor figure in to intrinsic value?

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

He used to, but that got kind of long-winded. Now he just has "24-7-365 Bloviation" tattooed on his forehead. Helvetica font. It doesn't convey the same nuance as his prior pitch, but it gets the point across.

Found this for you:



TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Oooh, dazzling them with Marxist economics. Tell me, how do you relate the extraction of surplus labor value to intrinsic value? Must you always extract some surplus labor value to deal with transaction costs or do costs associated with trading and monetizing the product of labor figure in to intrinsic value?

Take your false consciousness somewhere else. The lumpenproletariat may fall for your stuff, but not me.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Take your false consciousness somewhere else. The lumpenproletariat may fall for your stuff, but not me.

The more I think about it, when Penske and I were working together here to take down al Queda, you used your position of power to delete critical communications. And I felt I needed to explain Critical Legal Studies to you? Silly me, eh Comrade?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

But you're just making shit up. Maybe my company does a good job of paying people what they're "worth," and in fact we're all going to make more money because of all the increased spending by previously undercompensated people in the rest of the country. Moreover, if you think you're making things better, then there's going to be more growth, and we'll all see more than minimal increases.

Except that's not what happens. The debate about whether increased minimum wages lift all boats is nowhere near resolved.

The argument that increased minimum wage will come out of the pockets of shareholders, owners, and management has as much heft as the argument you raise.

That's nonsense. No one in the market is thinking about a GC's value in the abstract. They are looking at what they'll have to pay to get a person in the door, and what the gain is relative to not hiring that person. GC'ing may or may not be easy, but the question for the employer is, what happens if I hire a less qualified person (and I'm talking about qualifications, not credentials)? You may scoff at strategy, but the reason why I get my jobs is that I have knowledge about the world and business which is valuable to my employers and which not a lot of people have.

I don't scoff at strategy. I'm merely suggesting that sort of skill, which I don't think anyone has found terribly mentally taxing (YMMV depending on industry*) is overvalued. But that's just one of loads of skills that enjoy unwarranted premiums do to lack of information among the public. If a laymen knew the ease with which all sorts of professional jobs can be performed, the value of endless types of professionals and managers would fall radically overnight.

We profit from, I believe the term is, "informational asymmetries." A discussion that introduces intrinsic value, which is nothing but a focus on the basic value of something before the exchange value is established, would help to lower our exchange value.

A really amusing way of effecting a correction would be for someone on a big network to put out a primetime ten part series, taking ten overpaid-for jobs, and analyzing each, with whistle-blowers making admissions about what the jobs really involve. Call it, "What Your [Insert Job] Really Does."

Why? What if the difference between what I do and what they do is worth lots to the company?

I think the multiplier between the highest paid job and the lowest paid job would begin to revert to something like we saw in the 50s, when there was a more corporate, as opposed to deal-obsessed, economy.

Since you can't explain how that works, it appears that's a euphemism for "making shit up."

It's simple. Introduce an intrinsic value into the debate and let behavioral economics do the rest. Capital is always looking for cost savings, and it hates labor costs most, at all tiers. If we give it the intellectual underpinning to more aggressively cut middle to upper management and professional service wages, and the political cover of doing so to facilitate more pay to lower end workers, the arguments will get traction.

We already have a form of intrinsic valuation of labor: Minimum wage. That's a baseline value assigned to an hour of labor, regardless of what exchange value would dictate. In a socialist or communist system, one could assign all sorts of intrinsic values to different types of work. But again, we needn't do that. All we need to do is start the conversation about intrinsic valuation here and let it become an academic scaffolding for the argument that management and professionals are overpaid. Market forces would do the rest. (It would work hand in hand with tech, which is already doing this in a different manner.)

The argument that the upper middle class is actually stealing the most from the economy and keeping the poor poor, rather than the 1%, is quietly gaining traction already. We've all seen articles about that, and there's some truth to it.

One can think that CEO pay is out of whack (and identify specific reasons for that) without thinking that everyone's pay across the whole economy is out of whack and needs to be replaced with a number that you made up.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/t...-middle-class/

And cited within it: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...t-america.html

I could cite a bunch more like that.

I think you are saying that you aspire to making shit up as a way of making a living, and I say, good luck to you.

I think you're in the limo, humming along with the rest of us to Phil Ochs.
______
* YMMV, but law, regulatory issues, etc. are a limited chessboard, involving a lot of baseline manipulation of humans. I think the ability to manipulate situations and people is at least as much if not more innate than learned. You either know how to manipulate or you don't, and while I think a bit of it can be learned, the ability to do it at the level required to be an effective strategist is in your bones, or it isn't.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I think you're in the limo, humming along with the rest of us to Phil Ochs.

What is it about limos that Sebby hates so much?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

What is it about limos that Sebby hates so much?

Nothing. But I do prefer those black Suburbans you frequently get with Uber XL. Since the skiing accident, it's hard to bend down into town cars (or any car).

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Except that's not what happens. The debate about whether increased minimum wages lift all boats is nowhere near resolved.

I thought you were proposing something more profound that raising the minimum wage, but I guess neither of us really know what you're proposing. My assumption is that spreading money around more equitably would be better for everyone, in the aggregate, and if you disagree with that then I'm not sure why you think it's a good idea.

I don't scoff at strategy. I'm merely suggesting that sort of skill, which I don't think anyone has found terribly mentally taxing (YMMV depending on industry*) is overvalued. But that's just one of loads of skills that enjoy unwarranted premiums do to lack of information among the public. If a laymen knew the ease with which all sorts of professional jobs can be performed, the value of endless types of professionals and managers would fall radically overnight.

That would make sense if professionals and managers were hired by laymen with no familiarity with their jobs, but it turns out that's not how the world works.

We profit from, I believe the term is, "informational asymmetries." A discussion that introduces intrinsic value, which is nothing but a focus on the basic value of something before the exchange value is established, would help to lower our exchange value.

A really amusing way of effecting a correction would be for someone on a big network to put out a primetime ten part series, taking ten overpaid-for jobs, and analyzing each, with whistle-blowers making admissions about what the jobs really involve. Call it, "What Your [Insert Job] Really Does."

In my job, the information assymmetry is that I know stuff about the law and compliance, and my colleagues don't. So they pay me to help them understand what they need to do. This seems to create value. Not clear why you think it needs correction.

I think the multiplier between the highest paid job and the lowest paid job would begin to revert to something like we saw in the 50s, when there was a more corporate, as opposed to deal-obsessed, economy.

If you're focussed on the highest-paid jobs, then try a corporate governance fix.

It's simple. Introduce an intrinsic value into the debate and let behavioral economics do the rest. Capital is always looking for cost savings, and it hates labor costs most, at all tiers. If we give it the intellectual underpinning to more aggressively cut middle to upper management and professional service wages, and the political cover of doing so to facilitate more pay to lower end workers, the arguments will get traction.

We already have a form of intrinsic valuation of labor: Minimum wage. That's a baseline value assigned to an hour of labor, regardless of what exchange value would dictate. In a socialist or communist system, one could assign all sorts of intrinsic values to different types of work. But again, we needn't do that. All we need to do is start the conversation about intrinsic valuation here and let it become an academic scaffolding for the argument that management and professionals are overpaid. Market forces would do the rest. (It would work hand in hand with tech, which is already doing this in a different manner.)

The argument that the upper middle class is actually stealing the most from the economy and keeping the poor poor, rather than the 1%, is quietly gaining traction already. We've all seen articles about that, and there's some truth to it.

1. Introduce an intrinsic value into the debate
2. ??????
3. Social justice and peace on Earth

Sounds so crazy it just might work.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/t...-middle-class/

And cited within it: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...t-america.html

I could cite a bunch more like that.

I'm sure you could, and they would be equally unresponsive to what I said, which was, "One can think that CEO pay is out of whack (and identify specific reasons for that) without thinking that everyone's pay across the whole economy is out of whack and needs to be replaced with a number that you made up."

I think you're in the limo, humming along with the rest of us to Phil Ochs.

Ms Slothrop did the driving this am, but there's certainly no limo.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Nothing. But I do prefer those black Suburbans you frequently get with Uber XL. Since the skiing accident, it's hard to bend down into town cars (or any car).

Are limos even a thing any more? I mean, other than for Prom? Are you thinking liberals shouldn't go to prom? I just don't get it.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Are limos even a thing any more? I mean, other than for Prom? Are you thinking liberals shouldn't go to prom? I just don't get it.

His point is, all of us are overvalued, the beneficiaries of a rigged system that helps us and keeps the proles down, and we are deluded in our bleeting about Trump because we don't want real change, we just want a different leader who will preserve our privileges.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Are limos even a thing any more? I mean, other than for Prom? Are you thinking liberals shouldn't go to prom? I just don't get it.

ThroneBanes are my thing, on Grab, which defeated Uber in SE Asia. I still want to short the company, but the new CEO is doing a good job of selling its unprofitable extensions, which is resulting in consolidation in the industry, which is limiting the turf war pricing to the bottom. Not that I dont enjoy that, e.g. a $3.50 ride from the airport this morning.

LessinYangon, Myanmar