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Politics, politics, politics

scaramanga said:
If the top roles at companies weren't worth a lot of money, people wouldn't be paid a lot of money for them.
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But why has the pay for the very top CEO's soared in comparison to the rest of society over the past 20 years? Have they all become that much more talented relative to everyone else?

Or has lots of money found it's way to the stock-market, raising share prices, compounded with corporate profits going into share buy-backs and raising stock prices further, meaning these CEO's are getting a sh1t-load of cash due to the performance of their company's share-price?
 
scaramanga said:
It's fairly common that people think they can do what directors can and that they'd be happy to for a fraction of the pay.

I've also seen a fair few people become directors (from already high up positions) and fail miserably. Whether it's knowledge, decision-making, stress management or one of hundreds of other things, there are a lot of people who simply cannot do the job.

Just because there's not a technical qualification or easily measurable skillset as for a doctor or an engineer, it doesn't make it any less difficult a role to succeed at. The employment market (other than the unwelcome interference of the minimum wage) is reasonably free and frictionless. If the top roles at companies weren't worth a lot of money, people wouldn't be paid a lot of money for them.
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The MD of my employer, who I work closely with has just been through an utterly horrendous few years of stress and pressure, with the company's future hanging in the balance. I obviously can't go into specifics, but I can categorically state that it was through absolutely no fault or wrongdoing on the part of her or the company (it was an external, industry issue).

It's very easy to idly criticise people in such positions, without having any insight at all into the issues and pressures that they face - not least of which is being responsible for the fate of many other people's livelihoods. I can honestly say that, in my MD's case, if she had earned 5 times her salary for the past few years, it still wouldn't have been suitable compensation for what she's been though.
 
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scaramanga said:
Fortunately for me, surviving on a desert island is not one of my day to day tasks.
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You are expendable. When the zombies come we'll throw you off the roof as a distraction.

In my experience, the top execs I've encountered don't fit the cream rises to the top paradigm. It would be more accurate to say it is professional tossers that get the key to the executive bathroom. I suppose being a clown shoe is a skillset in itself.

Zombie fodder.
 
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the dza said:
But why has the pay for the very top CEO's soared in comparison to the rest of society over the past 20 years? Have they all become that much more talented relative to everyone else?

Or has lots of money found it's way to the stock-market, raising share prices, compounded with corporate profits going into share buy-backs and raising stock prices further, meaning these CEO's are getting a sh1t-load of cash due to the performance of their company's share-price?
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The bottom end of the market has become flooded with cheap labour, creating a downward force on pay in all but those jobs with rare skill sets.

Also take into consideration how a company looking to employ a director would do so. They only really have three choices - pick one with no experience, pick from directors who have failed at a previous role or headhunt them from another corporation. The first two make little sense, the third is expensive and inflationary. It's very rare that people at that level decide to move on to a new challenge at the same rate of remuneration having been a success to that point.
 
Parklaner81 said:
The MD of my employer, who I work closely with has just been through an utterly horrendous few years of stress and pressure, with the company's future hanging in the balance. I obviously can't go into specifics, but I can categorically state that it was through absolutely no fault or wrongdoing on the part of her or the company (it was an external, industry issue).

It's very easy to idly criticise people in such positions, without having any insight at all into the issues and pressures that they face - not least of which is being responsible for the fate of many other people's livelihoods. I can honestly say that, in my MD's case, if she had earned 5 times her salary for the past few years, it still wouldn't have been suitable compensation for what she's been though.
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Not many people can say they have directly experienced the stress of hundreds of people's (and their families') wellbeing hanging by their own actions. We often face those external pressures (they're the only problematic ones in my life) and keeping a "normal" family life and trying to switch off from your work life is nigh on impossible.

In terms of remuneration, I think I'm paid fairly for a very difficult job. I have a lot more grey hair than when I started but I have a quality of life my parents could never have dreamed of. If the rest of the board and the shareholders decided I should be paid more I would accept (assuming no risk to the company) but I certainly won't be shopping around for somewhere else to play my trade. That, for me, is a fairly strong indicator that I'm paid a fair salary for my role.
 
scaramanga said:
The bottom end of the market has become flooded with cheap labour, creating a downward force on pay in all but those jobs with rare skill sets.

Also take into consideration how a company looking to employ a director would do so. They only really have three choices - pick one with no experience, pick from directors who have failed at a previous role or headhunt them from another corporation. The first two make little sense, the third is expensive and inflationary. It's very rare that people at that level decide to move on to a new challenge at the same rate of remuneration having been a success to that point.
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Ah yes, similar to how "other clubs" operate...just send out a DoF with a fat wallet and sign the best from others "bests", in the process ignoring some great minds and talent within your own system. It is a self-protective system, not a brave one. A brave company would have genuine talents at the top of their tree who could spot talent in their companies. I have tremendous appreciation for management skills as I have encountered so few who genuinely possess them. It is a shame that so few in said-positions have the courage/knowledge to look for talent within their own...
 
scaramanga said:
Not many people can say they have directly experienced the stress of hundreds of people's (and their families') wellbeing hanging by their own actions. We often face those external pressures (they're the only problematic ones in my life) and keeping a "normal" family life and trying to switch off from your work life is nigh on impossible.

In terms of remuneration, I think I'm paid fairly for a very difficult job. I have a lot more grey hair than when I started but I have a quality of life my parents could never have dreamed of. If the rest of the board and the shareholders decided I should be paid more I would accept (assuming no risk to the company) but I certainly won't be shopping around for somewhere else to play my trade. That, for me, is a fairly strong indicator that I'm paid a fair salary for my role.
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Critically, you are honest about your choices and appear to squarely accept their consequences whether good or bad. No-one could reasonably complain about that, though I personally hope your work/life balance can swing more towards the latter (even though it was genuinely none of my business). Compare what you have said about yourself to the PATHETIC "interview" Elon Musk recently gave to the NYT, where he blathered on about difficulties and stress and pressure and tweets and ambien and woe-was-him. Pathetic! I have ZERO sympathy for him! He made his choices and apparently they aren't working for him. Which is not the issue - the issue is how everyone should feel sorry for him! The numpty!

I will say that I think the pay/pay rises CEOs have been receiving in the last two decades or so have become so obscene that they are almost beyond rational commentary or judgement. There is an enormous issue with wealth disparity, although I would argue that this mirrors the plummet in quality of public education. The worse our public education system has become, the greater the wealth disparity. We laugh at chavs, but unfortunately chavs are the direct result of an under-educated class being told that "wealth is health" and subsequently trying to appease themselves by wearing cheap accouterments of "tangible wealth" thus continuing to place inordinate amounts of "worth" in stupid, needless things. This does, I admit, make it harder to find smart, talented people from lower down a company's ranks and nurture them to a top position due to the increase in an under-educated public, but if they wanted to, companies/CEOs could commit to doing so.

I have long said that the biggest weapons used in class war divides are education and health. Under-educate and lessen access to great health-care, and you create a whole swathe of people whose primary aim becomes daily survival rather than smart, personal growth and expansive thought. This started a few decades ago and we are seeing it's rise worldwide in populism, where a load of basically under-educated (through no fault of their own!) people are making rash decisions based on "memes" and "tweets"...it is a sad time.
 
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thfcsteff said:
Critically, you are honest about your choices and appear to squarely accept their consequences whether good or bad. No-one could reasonably complain about that, though I personally hope your work/life balance can swing more towards the latter (even though it was genuinely none of my business). Compare what you have said about yourself to the PATHETIC "interview" Elon Musk recently gave to the NYT, where he blathered on about difficulties and stress and pressure and tweets and ambien and woe-was-him. Pathetic! I have ZERO sympathy for him! He made his choices and apparently they aren't working for him. Which is not the issue - the issue is how everyone should feel sorry for him! The numpty!

I will say that I think the pay/pay rises CEOs have been receiving in the last two decades or so have become so obscene that they are almost beyond rational commentary or judgement. There is an enormous issue with wealth disparity, although I would argue that this mirrors the plummet in quality of public education. The worse our public education system has become, the greater the wealth disparity. We laugh at chavs, but unfortunately chavs are the direct result of an under-educated class being told that "wealth is health" and subsequently trying to appease themselves by wearing cheap accouterments of "tangible wealth" thus continuing to place inordinate amounts of "worth" in stupid, needless things. This does, I admit, make it harder to find smart, talented people from lower down a company's ranks and nurture them to a top position due to the increase in an under-educated public, but if they wanted to, companies/CEOs could commit to doing so.

I have long said that the biggest weapons used in class war divides are education and health. Under-educate and lessen access to great health-care, and you create a whole swathe of people whose primary aim becomes daily survival rather than smart, personal growth and expansive thought. This started a few decades ago and we are seeing it's rise worldwide in populism, where a load of basically under-educated (through no fault of their own!) people are making rash decisions based on "memes" and "tweets"...it is a sad time.
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And yet we throw vast sums at improving health and education.
Life expectancy is improving, but is quality of life improving at the lower end of society.
Exam results and and uni numbers are now so high its laughable, but in reality these are just political targets with no real meaning.
 
It’s underinvestment and harsher sentencing and a failure to explore rehabilitative, community and restorative justice, just as much as it’s outsourcing that’s to blame. Which means that inhousing won’t be enough of a solution.
 
scaramanga said:
If only there were a way of making prisoners pay their own way through work.....
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Annual cost per prisoner in a PFI jail is around £35k. It's around £25k in a contracted-out prison or in the state-operated sector, where capital costs aren't a consideration.

The work done in prisons is - as you'd imagine - not particularly skilled. It's going to replace minimum wage or offshored labour. If exploited prison labour is 60% as productive, and the contractor expects a 30% discount on labour costs to cover the hassle and the risk, you're getting about £5k per prisoner per year.

So, even if you're only paying the prisoner a tenner a week canteen money for 40 hours of labour, when you consider the additional staffing costs involved in supervising work, they are never, ever going to "pay their own way". The value of prison labour is mainly going to be in rehabilitation, or at least in stopping them going stark staring bonkers through 23 hour bang up in a one-man cell occupied by three.
 
ShipOfGoldblum said:
Annual cost per prisoner in a PFI jail is around £35k. It's around £25k in a contracted-out prison or in the state-operated sector, where capital costs aren't a consideration.

The work done in prisons is - as you'd imagine - not particularly skilled. It's going to replace minimum wage or offshored labour. If exploited prison labour is 60% as productive, and the contractor expects a 30% discount on labour costs to cover the hassle and the risk, you're getting about £5k per prisoner per year.

So, even if you're only paying the prisoner a tenner a week canteen money for 40 hours of labour, when you consider the additional staffing costs involved in supervising work, they are never, ever going to "pay their own way". The value of prison labour is mainly going to be in rehabilitation, or at least in stopping them going stark staring bonkers through 23 hour bang up in a one-man cell occupied by three.
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£5K per prisoner is £5K better than £0 (I'm really good at maths).

The rehabilitation costs must save a lot of ongoing cost after and at the end of the incarceration. Those services won't be free to the taxpayer either and I assume are not included in the £35K.
 
scaramanga said:
£5K per prisoner is £5K better than £0 (I'm really good at maths).

The rehabilitation costs must save a lot of ongoing cost after and at the end of the incarceration. Those services won't be free to the taxpayer either and I assume are not included in the £35K.
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Well, yes. If rehabilitation works, the savings and benefits are massive.
 
ShipOfGoldblum said:
It’s underinvestment and harsher sentencing and a failure to explore rehabilitative, community and restorative justice, just as much as it’s outsourcing that’s to blame. Which means that inhousing won’t be enough of a solution.
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I agree. The majority of people in prison get released, so they need to be made ready to go back into normal society, or it's just going to cost us more money and see more people get hurt. Doesn't sound like an environment of drugs, violence and filthy, inhumane conditions are going to prepare anyone for anything but more of the same.
 
Grays_1890 said:
Why is Jamie Oliver getting so much crap over some Jerk Rice?
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To be fair, there's no such thing as jerk rice, and the ingredients added to the rice are utterly unlike those used in jerk chicken or fish.

If Jamaican celebs were marketing cheese sandwiches as "traditional British cheese-in-the-hole" we'd probably take the tinkle, although perhaps we'd stop short of complaining about cultural appropriation.
 
ShipOfGoldblum said:
To be fair, there's no such thing as jerk rice, and the ingredients added to the rice are utterly unlike those used in jerk chicken or fish.

If Jamaican celebs were marketing cheese sandwiches as "traditional British cheese-in-the-hole" we'd probably take the tinkle, although perhaps we'd stop short of complaining about cultural appropriation.
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Go anywhere in the world and there are takes of other cultures food, I don't think i have been to a street food market in the world where the food hasnt taken a twist from the original.

I doubt BrickLane Curries are anywhere near the same as they are in India, infact I know they are not.
 
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