[jacquesm]

I disagree. I think that companies should have a strong obligation to back their employees during downturns otherwise it is just another form of externalization: make the profits when you can and saddle society with the costs when you can't. That leads to more and more wealth inequality.

[cloutchaser]

You could argue your point the other way round. When times were good these companies clearly overemployed staff. That is very unfair to investors. Cutting back at this time finally prioritizes investor goals, and it’s pretty minimal anyway.

Not to mention the insane benefits these employees get, these are the best employers in the world. It’s clear employee happiness was much more important during good times than any investor sentiment. Investors just shut up as the business was still growing.

[jacquesm]

There is very little that a CEO can do that is unfair to investors short of defrauding them on purpose.

Investors are a rule are smart enough to realize that they - by virtue of being 'passive' - allow people that know more about the business to run it. Back seat drivers are hardly ever welcome as investors, if you're that good you should go and run another company, surely that's a better use of your talent then than to try to run a diversified fund.

[auggierose]

If you don't want wealth inequality, let everybody from birth on start at the same zero, or rather, the same 1 million, or whatever is possible. Otherwise, what kind of equality are we talking about here?

With AI, capital will dominate everything. Crass inequality will be the norm. The only path out of this will be paved with blood. Except if humanity is much smarter than I think it is.

[jacquesm]

We're talking about the difference between the billionaires that are the subject of the article and the people who end up being laid off (who are still pretty rich compared to many people). This guy is utterly isolated from the consequences of the decisions that he is asking for and effectively wants society to pay for his results. That's mismatched at many levels.

[auggierose]

So what? All people in power are utterly isolated from the consequences of the decisions they make. I don't see any mismatch here. I feel it is quite pointless to talk about the morality of billionaires. They are amoral pretty much by the definition of a billion.

[jacquesm]

Apologies for being rude but this is a discussion forum and I'll determine for myself what it is pointless to talk about and if you feel that you don't care then don't bother entering the discussion.

FWIW I don't think that it is pointless to talk about the effect that billionaires are having on our lives precisely because their billions insulate them from the consequences which effectively makes them our new kings with their own dynasty. And the kings of old were at least somewhat accountable to their population in times of hardship and their influence was limited to the countries that they governed (or decided to go to war with).

I sincerely believe that if we don't find a way to reign this in that it will come back to haunt us.

[cloutchaser]

What he is saying is that in any society the elite are isolated, this isn’t something unique to billionaires. You think Chavez in Venezuela or Xi in China is still a man of the people?

Perhaps this is a good thing. You can’t make emotional decisions when you are responsible for millions of people potentially. You literally wouldn’t be able to have leaders if leaders were emotionally involved in tens of thousands of peoples hard lives.

[jacquesm]

Then maybe the solution is to do away with the leaders who can't. Because lots of people who crave power are exactly the ones who shouldn't have it in the first place. Xi for instance is not exactly lighting the way in terms of ethics.

[auggierose]

I care about the topic, and I don't think we are too far away in our opinions. Apologies for being rude, I just don't think you are approaching this from a fundamental enough point of view, but a naive point of view where you think that this game has rules you can use to win. No, you have to change the game entirely.

[jacquesm]

Then why do you try to shut down the discussion?

As for me being naive: I am pretty realistic in my expectations but I do believe that the achilles heel of these characters is exposed: their wealth stems from a bug in capitalism that allows the unfettered collection of money, power, influence once you achieve a certain base. The fact that we don't have a way to effectively tax transnational entities is something that is absolutely fixable, and we currently do not have rules for that. Changing the game entirely is throwing the baby away with the bathwater, taking care of < 500 individuals in such a way that their tricks are no longer going to cause the upheaval of the lives of 100's of thousands of others is definitely something I would be happy to see implemented.

[NhanH]

I might buy this argument for privately owned company, but for public traded company, wouldn’t they acting against their interest saddle the society with the costs (as the public, or in other words, society, is their owner)

I understand the follow up argument about a majority of people might not hold ownership in any public company at all, but that feels like a separate topic.

[jacquesm]

The public is not in general the public that is active on the stockmarket, in spite of the name 'public company' you are looking at very large amounts of institutional capital and a relatively small part owned by the guy in the street. Of course in times of a perceived downturn all of those institutional investors will be trying to offload their holdings onto the guy in the street before the music stops and that is one way in which the 'public' then participates in the market: they lose their shirt.