Corbyn suggests earnings limit

[unbeliever]

Great idea. Don't know how it would work though

 

"Don't know how it would work" pretty much disqualifies something as a "Great idea".

[3 Tuns]

Just thick as **** . losing the plot big style .

 

I saw this on a political blog. It rather amused me.

 

" Jeremy is doing his job to the best of his ability and the polls reflect that."

[Cyclone]

Its clearly very important to you. I think the rest of us are quite happy to know that the HSBC has moved highly paid jobs away from the UK for tax reasons, and that any company is free to do the same.

None of this alters the fact that the Labour leader continues to prove he is unsuitable for high office.

The polls currently show taround 50% more folk would vote Conservative than Labour in a general election which would spare the world from his vision of utopia.

I thought Danny Blacheflower put it rather well yesterday and he was a labour party advisor. "Corbyn calls for max wage law if I was still an adviser I would have told him it's a totally idiotic unworkable idea"

 

So you're saying that your strawman argument is important to me why? I haven't commented on whether HSBC moved jobs to HK or why. It's not relevant to this conversation.

[Robin-H]

So you're saying that your strawman argument is important to me why? I haven't commented on whether HSBC moved jobs to HK or why. It's not relevant to this conversation.

 

But that would be a consequence of a salary cap would it not? So it's relevant in that sense.

[Cyclone]

"Don't know how it would work" pretty much disqualifies something as a "Great idea".

 

Does it?

 

It's pretty lucky that inventors don't follow that maxim isn't it.

 

Wright Brother 1: I've had a great idea, powered human flight, don't know how it would work though.

Wright Brother 2: Well, it's not great then, I do know how walking works, let's stick with that.

 

---------- Post added 11-01-2017 at 12:05 ----------

 

But that would be a consequence of a salary cap would it not? So it's relevant in that sense.

 

It's a likely consequence I agree. I never said it wasn't. Hence why it's a strawman argument.

[unbeliever]

Does it?

 

It's pretty lucky that inventors don't follow that maxim isn't it.

 

Wright Brother 1: I've had a great idea, powered human flight, don't know how it would work though.

Wright Brother 2: Well, it's not great then, I do know how walking works, let's stick with that.

 

Yes that probably amused you for a minute, but unlike all those who went before and simply thought it would be nice, the inventors of powered they did have a pretty good idea how it would work. That's kind of required if you're to have any chance of succeeding.

[L00b]

There's no link between high executive pay and performance though L00b

That is contentious.

 

I'd argue that the differential has reached such proportions, in the context of capitalistic markets having reached such a level of volatility since 2008, that this 'link' is now far more tenuous, than it ever was.

 

But logically, it cannot be wholly inexistent, else that means there are effectively no market forces influencing top level exec remuneration, i.e. there is influence beyond that of an oligopoly.

Is this right? And if it isn't then what's going to stop the gap continuing to increase?

Whilst I would tend to agree with an argument against 'excessive' pay on moral grounds, pragmatically I have seen (and worked with) enough companies (including even Fortune 500 ones) to appreciate the difference between the effect which a good exec (or team thereof) has on company performance vs the alternative.

 

And reciprocally. I mean, it's not as if everybody doesn't remember Paul Flowers, right?

 

The only force which I can see stopping the gap from increasing, is a backlash by a critical mass of shareholding across a critical mass of those big corps which set the exec remuneration pace at the global level.

 

EDIT: thinking about the issue for a minute longer, I see a valid analogy between a company's top execs contribution and a company's IP contribution. You know what they both cost (and they can cost a lot), but it's extremely difficult to value them accurately, so you're left to try and value them by perception (what opportunities do they bring? what deals do they facilitate? what new revenue streams do they spout? <etc.>), knowing all along what the cost of doing without is significantly more than the cost doing with.

Edited January 11, 2017 by L00b

[Cyclone]

Yes that probably amused you for a minute, but unlike all those who went before and simply thought it would be nice, the inventors of powered they did have a pretty good idea how it would work. That's kind of required if you're to have any chance of succeeding.

 

I'm guessing that they had to start from a position of not knowing how it would work, and then build on that, the 'great idea' bit comes first, turning that into a practical solution comes after.

[tinfoilhat]

I'm guessing that they had to start from a position of not knowing how it would work, and then build on that, the 'great idea' bit comes first, turning that into a practical solution comes after.

 

Well, in fairness the poster concerned may have some fully formed ideas, projections on the impact on tax revenue, interviews with some top execs or the CBI to see how it may effect business in whats likely to be a challenging couple of years in this country.

 

Rep123, the floor is yours.

[Localman]

When I started working in a bank nearly 50 years ago, the highest paid executive was paid 16 times the salary of the lowest paid adult employee.

 

Today, the successor bank pays its highest paid executives more than 160 times the salary of the lowest paid adult employee (and, with bonuses, some staff are well in excess of this).

 

The differential isn't justified and it has nothing to do with performance, commitment, loyalty...

 

In fact, the difference is simply obscene.

 

However, like everything else he has done, Corbyn has made a complete pig's ear of the issue and, quite rightly, has had excrement poured all over him and his proposals (which kept changing every time he spoke yesterday) by former advisers like David Blanchflower and Richard Murphy.