[jmclnx]

>Supreme Court might be sympathetic to some of the industry’s arguments

No surprise here, the US Supreme Court is now just like the rest of the US Gov, they are very happy to take bribes. And due to how the US Gov is structured, no way to stop them from holding out their hand. So getting appointed to that Court is a great gig, you do not even have to care about the law these days.

[andrei_says_]

“Now”? Seems like this has been going on for a very long time.

We started paying attention now.

As for the US gov and institutionalized corruption I highly recommend Lester Lessig’s work around political donations reform as the first step to democracy in the US.

We the people and the republic we must reclaim is an excellent summary of the issue and the solution: https://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_...

[dantheman]

How about something far simpler - reduce to the us government to only enumerated powers. If they want to do something not enumerated pass an amendment.

[mschuster91]

That would just end in a situation even worse than now - such a policy requires a government in the continental European parliamentary form to make sure the government always has a parliamentary backing.

[nradov]

No, actually it would be far superior. We should strictly limit the power of the Federal government to what was actually intended by the Founders instead of using the Commerce Clause as a loophole. Devolve everything else to the several states.

[krapp]

We tried that. It was called the Articles of Confederation[0]. It was an unmitigated disaster, and the reason we have our current Constitution with power actually consolidated under a Federal government.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation

[tebut]

Yeah it turns out humans are mush and goo seeking to survive and propagate

When exactly was this magical past where things were better, I wonder?

[synetic]

Justice Thomas said (in 2001) that for the pay they receive no one would take the job if not for the gifts.

[callmeal]

> Justice Thomas said (in 2001) that for the pay they receive no one would take the job if not for the gifts^H^H^H^H^H bribes.

FTFY.

As of 2022, the salary of a US Supreme Court Justice is $274,200 per year. The Chief Justice of the United States, who is the head of the Supreme Court, receives a slightly higher salary of $286,700 per year.

Of course no one will take that job. How much does a banana cost again? $10?

[kelipso]

Yeah, how many millions of government employees and contractors who have to be under very strict gift policies and much lower salaries. Somehow they stay in their jobs without taking bribes.

[selectodude]

Frankly it's unreasonable that a supreme court justice should be expected to only have two modest homes instead of three enormous ones.

[mc32]

I agree it’s unreasonable that avowed socialists should maintain multiple homes as well, but here we are. How do freshman Congress people suddenly have millions in assets to their names?

[nocoolnametom]

I know, right? It's like, I don't even want to HEAR about your ideas on how to fix a broken system unless you've taken the personal responsibility to try and reorient your personal life to adhere to your proposed ideas while continuing to try living in the still-broken system even if that personal transition, without any systemic changes to the surrounding culture and community, make your new life impossible to live.

That's the way we _always_ implement change in America!

*Also, do you not like that the socialist merely _has_ two homes, or do you not agree with the reasoning behind _why_ they have two homes?

[OO000oo]

This is a bad joke, right? Would you hold the politicians that you support to the same standards? Of course not, and none of Bernie’s supporters could possibly care less if he has a home in Vermont and a home in DC just like literally every single senator.

You can't possibly even know what socialism is if making such an airheaded comment.

[scrubs]

Bingo. Once again rules are different for the powerful. I don't buy it for a minute.

[retrac]

How much could a good lawyer with a long and distinguished career make in the private market? That's how much we should be paying our judges. If you want the best you have to at least be moderately competitive with what's on offer. I have a similar opinion about legislators -- we probably want top tier doctors and executives and lawyers as our legislators. Being elected to office should not be a step down in their lifestyle.

I see private compensation for elite talent being completely out of whack -- the prices the public service must compete with -- as basically a separate issue.

Historically, a generous salary for legislators and various other high offices was part of the progressive/left platform in both the UK and France. They weren't paid before the 19th century, ensuring only the independently wealthy could hold those offices.

[SoftTalker]

It may be idealistic, but I think that those elected to office or appointed to influential positions such as judges should do so largely out of a sense of public service instead of personal enrichment. For people who are motivated by greed or power, no amount of compensation will be enough, they will always be tempted to to increase their power and wealth by taking bribes or political favors.

Pay them a respectable salary but you do not and should not try to match what the private sector pays. It not the same playing field and should not attempt to be.

[lumb63]

I don’t understand this position. It feels to me like you’re proposing we financially exploit those who are magnanimous and duty-driven enough to tolerate public service. Do you have the same opinion regarding other organizations operating for public good, rather than financial self interest?

For instance, what you’re saying feels logically equivalent to me to saying we should tax charities more heavily since they aren’t driven by greed, or that we should underpay active duty military personnel since they’re driven more by love for their country than by self interest. It seems to me that it should be the exact opposite, and we should incentivize people to make sacrifices for the greater good.

Underpaying people who choose to enter a certain sector because of a personally held belief that they ought to be financially unmotivated, then ceding massive power to those people and allowing them to take bribes, seems to miss the forest for the trees.

EDIT: I’m also curious how you rectify your position with the empirical evidence that our current system, wherein public service is financially discouraged, has led to direct and indirect bribery and corruption in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. It seems to me that the current system isn’t working, and leaning further into the aspect that makes it not work is not a good idea. Maybe a more fruitful route would be reducing the power of individual representatives so that there is less incentive to bribe them, or outright banning the quid-pro-quo agreements that run rampant in our country currently, like prohibiting regulators from working for companies in the industry they regulated after their time in office.

[csnover]

I guess the OP thinks anyone sufficiently motivated by financial self-interest such that they won’t want the job unless it pays ‘enough’ is also someone who is going to be more open to bribery because they value personal wealth too much. I can see both sides on this but I don’t think it’s unreasonable.

People who are drawn to positions of power and also highly motivated by personal wealth seem like particularly bad choices if you want to avoid corruption, so keeping the salary low may sufficiently disincentivise this sort of person from entering the public sector.

On the other hand, public sector work is harder in many ways, so not providing equal or superior compensation may discourage many people who are entirely scrupulous but not foolish enough to both take on the extra burden of public sector work and make less money at the same time.

> It feels to me like you’re proposing we financially exploit those who are magnanimous and duty-driven enough to tolerate public service.

I understand that it may seem foolish or unjust, but it feels unreasonable to me to suggest it’s exploitative to pay someone a 97th-percentile salary[0] just because it’s not commensurate with private sector peers in a highly compensated industry.

> For instance, what you’re saying feels logically equivalent to me to saying we should tax charities more heavily since they aren’t driven by greed, or that we should underpay active duty military personnel since they’re driven more by love for their country than by self interest.

The problem as it applies to judges and legislators is that they represent a very small group of people with the ability to make high-stakes decisions that impact a large number of people, and their decisions are enforced by the power of the state.

Charities don’t have the power of the state behind their decisions, and personnel within the military apparatus tend not to have much individual power, so the incentives for corruption are much more limited (and if it does happen, much less impactful).

> It seems to me that the current system isn’t working, and leaning further into the aspect that makes it not work is not a good idea.

Is there some proof that under-compensation is the main source of the corruption in the current system? I have no evidence either way, but my sense is that it is not.

[0] https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/ at $250k

[dralley]

>financially exploit

$274,000 doesn't feel like financial exploitation to me, even if it's below market rate.

[Applejinx]

This. You cannot simply normalize graft on the grounds that somebody might exist who can out-bribe a government. Any more than you normalize murder because everybody eventually dies some way or other.

Having it act like the same playing field got us in this mess. I'll note there are some supreme court justices who apparently don't take bribes or suggest their power should be supplemented by enough bribery to equal that of the best private sector lawyers and/or the best mob bosses…

[darth_avocado]

1. Supreme Court justices historically haven’t been the best, just the most cozy with politicians

2. Even if Justices were paid $10M, the corruption wouldn’t go away, because greed never goes away

Instead of focusing on the fact that justices are taking bribes because their salary is modest, therefore we need to pay them more, we should focus on nominating justices who don’t have such weak morals and ethics.

[ilovetux]

> How much could a good lawyer with a long and distinguished career make in the private market? That's how much we should be paying our judges.

That would maybe make sense if we were able to reign in their conflicts of interest. The private market would set a fiduciary duty on many lawyers in a number of capacities, but nothing like that exists for the SCOTUS.

As it stands now, there is no way to hold the justices (or really any elected or appointed official) accountable.

[scrubs]

I'd support this (higher pay mabe 5x to 10x) provided:

- no security trading

- recuse if conflicted

- cleanup of political fund raising

- criminal penalties on violation

You want control and just compensation? Can do. But not without commensurate accountability.

[amrocha]

I don't disagree with you, but at some point the number stops mattering. What's the difference in lifestyle between 300K and 500K? 500K and 1M?

And even if there is a difference, is that worth the opportunity cost of paying everyone else a little bit better?

It's not a very popular opinion, but there should be a maximum salary imo. Beyond a certain number money is a means of acquiring power and influence, and it feels wrong to reward people with that. Set a maximum to give people something to work harder for, but without inadvertently giving individuals the power to subvert democracy through money.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

$300k - after taxes - is not buying you a lavish lifestyle of in most major cities.

It's probably not even getting you comfortably into one of the better neighborhoods, unless your partner is the bread winner.

Chicago is one of the most affordable major cities in the US - and $300k isn't gonna do more than have you comfortably living in a small condo in the better neighborhoods.

[tptacek]

Huh? $300k/yr will get you pretty much anything you want in Chicagoland. By standard consumption patterns, that's an $800k house. An $800k Chicago house is quite large. It's also a 4-bdr condo even in some parts of the Loop.

[fbdab103]

A household income of $220k puts you in the 95th percentile of income in Chicago[0]. Is the bar for comfortable that you get to rub elbows with Bezos?

[0] https://statisticalatlas.com/place/Illinois/Chicago/Househol...

[JumpCrisscross]

> What's the difference in lifestyle between 300K and 500K? 500K and 1M?

Pretty massive, particularly when it comes to taking vacations and bringing friends who can’t afford them with you. $300k barely permits that domestically. $1 or 2mm lets you do that comfortably all over the world. Or, alternatively, single handedly saving restaurants you love or a buddy’s small business.

[amrocha]

"Saving" a business isn't really a lifestyle thing, that's more of an investment really. Realistically, your life isn't meaningfully worse if you find a new restaurant to go to.

Paying for friends to vacation with you is a very good one though. But idk, I feel like you can extend that so far that it feels like a copout. For example, maybe you can afford a nice home on 300K, but you can't buy your mom a nice home as well. And you can't pay your brothers student loans. And you can't gift them a car every couple years.

That's not your quality of life, that's paying for someone else to live the same lifestyle as you. At that point I'd just argue for raising wages across the board so that you don't feel the need to pay your friends, they just want to go on vacation with you.

[Applejinx]

Why do you have to have ultimate power and oversight of an entire branch of government AND flit comfortably all over the world?

Shouldn't ultimate power be its own reward? That and ten times the salary of most people…

[swader999]

You get into Nanny zone and hiring out all your chores with more time available.

[amrocha]

I used to that for the most part already on a third of the income (for a 2 bedroom apartment and no kids to be fair).

Biweekly maid service where they clean the dishes, the house, and do laundry. It wouldn't be much more expensive to change that to weekly and include cooking too if you wanted.

If you wanted to get a full time nanny though that's probably out of reach, but I don't understand why you even had children if you're just gonna pay someone else to raise them for you.

[johndhi]

To answer your question, lawyers of the capacity of the SCOTUS justices could expect to make about 4 million a year.

[Kye]

What's the value of a lifetime appointment?

[epistasis]

Depends a lot on whether they can take bribes, accept gifts, etc. during that appointment.

[Applejinx]

AS the final arbiter of the legal system…

[mistrial9]

" good lawyer " ??

[_dujt]

I imagine by the time a lawyer is experienced enough to be given a seat at the Supreme Court that they’re well past the point of needing an income.

With that being said, I’m not surprised in the slightest someone as corrupt as Thomas would have this opinion. Ginni Thomas and Clarence’s defense of her has forever tarnished the reputation of the Supreme Court and I don’t want to hear another word from his office. His replacement honestly cannot come soon enough.

[mc32]

The gov should do what Singapore does: pay senior officials well but exterminate any sort of non monetary perquisites and impeach or fire violators. Also ban any gov person from trading on insider info.

Also, if I had it my way, no government person while in the employ of the gov, should be able to vote at the level they represent or work in. If they’re fed employees no voting in fed elections and so on. Yes, I know under our constitution this would violate their rights. But you know, one can wish. I see it as a conflict of interest.

[epistasis]

For a long time, basic pride by Supreme Court justices kept this in check.

But now it's time for external enforcement. There are too many justices who think that they embody law and order in themselves, and therefore no matter what they do they are obeying the law, since they are the law. Similar to most police forces these days.

[Applejinx]

Oh, they are, in theory and in practice. Their literal job is embodying law and order and they make up the rules, and everyone else is stuck with what they decree, handing down final decisions like legal Gods.

I do not get how they then turn around and insist on also having uncountable wealth. Surely there are a lot of people who would be content with just having unaccountable power? Maybe they should make minimum wage, while also having final say over what law is.

[refurb]

For a long time, basic pride by Supreme Court justices kept this in check.

That's incredibly naive.

If anything politics and was dirtier in the past than the present. The media in the past did a great job of covering up things since they were so cozy with politicians.

Read about some of the politics of the 1800's in the US and it's far worse than today.

[scrubs]

The Supreme court is/will be bounded by the fact the inflation reduction act is law. This isn't like abortion where there is no federal law passed by congress and signed by the president.

I'm very happy to see this. And surely pricing transparency is good: we're gonna see just how this works.

Further I'm glad the US government is challenging corporate America. Corporations implicitly threaten the US public saying if minimum wage goes up they'll be forced to cut jobs. They implicitly threaten a leaner pipeline of drug advances if prices are negioated down.

Let's see how this cookie crumbles.

The US congress is explicitly tasked with the federal checkbook. Negotiating prices down is clearly in their purview and is consistent with agency they've always had. Has congress ever negotiated a price with defense, office supply chains? Has the congress solicited competitive bids on work? Then why not meds?

[jfengel]

The Supreme Court has the authority to strike down any law it finds unconstitutional. It may have to work slightly harder, but I have no doubt that they can find grounds on which the Inflation Reduction Act is unconstitutional.

In fact, googling those last five words turns up an industry lawsuit alleging precisely that:

https://phrma.org/resource-center/Topics/Access-to-Medicines...

I am certain that some members of the Court will agree, and others will not. It will come down to a count of votes. And I strongly doubt that I will agree with the reasoning that justifies those votes, either way.

[paulddraper]

> no way to stop them from holding out their hand

Same as for any other official: impeachment