American Exceptionalism and Euro-Bashing, Adam Davidson Style
Adam Davidson has an article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, "The Other Reason Europe is Going Broke," that manages the impressive feat of making you stupider than before you read it. It misrepresents most of the few facts it contains in appealing to American prejudices about our cultural, or in this case,...
“Let Them Eat Pink Slips”: CEO Pay Shot Up in 2010
One of the big differences between private companies and public ones is private ones care a lot more about preserving their franchise, which includes their staff. In the old days of Wall Street (which I do not romanticize as a golden era, but man, it looks better than what we have now) partner would take...
Taleb: End Bonuses at Too Big to Fail Banks
This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. Over 475 donors have already invested in our efforts to shed light on the dark and seamy corners of finance. Join us and participate via our Tip Jar or read about why we're doing this fundraiser and other ways to donate on our kickoff post and one discussing...
Steve Rattner, Card Carrying Member of Top 1%, Tells Us We Should Lie Back and Enjoy Much Lower Wages Resulting From Globalization
A corollary to Upton Sinclair's famous saying, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it" is "People promote ideas that help them secure or preserve a privileged position on the totem pole."
A glaring example of these observations came in an op ed in...
“Why Pay for Performance Should Get the Sack”
Yves here. Before reacting reflexively to the thesis of the article, consider this corroborating view from the former chairman of Goldman, John Whitehead, back in 2007:
"I'm appalled at the salaries," the retired co-chairman of the securities industry's most profitable firm said in an interview this week. At Goldman, which paid Chairman and Chief Executive...
The Decline of Manufacturing in America: A Case Study
One frequent and frustrating line that often crops up in the comments section of this blog is that American labor has no hope, it should just accept Chinese wages, since price is all that matters. That line of thinking is wrongheaded on multiple levels. It assumes direct factory labor is the most important cost driver,...
Dumb things bloggers say
Alright, I have a mea culpa here. Check out this quote from June 2008: Bank of America’s Ken Lewis is trying to crack a big nut in taking on Countrywide Financial to its balance sheet. To date, BofA has been fairly successful in limiting its writedowns during this credit crisis, but there are any number...
25 Big Corp CEOs Made More Than Their Companies Paid in Federal Taxes
In case you doubted that America needs more progressive taxation, the case in its favor has just been made in a study, "Executive Excess 2011: The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging," by the Institute of Policy Studies (hat tip readers aet and Vlad via the International Business Times). The report found that the...
An Almost-Open Letter to the CEO and Chairman of the UK’s Financial Services Authority
A letter to the UK's Financial Services Authority, by one of the victims of an apparent massive fraud perpetrated on SME customers of Halifax-Bank of Scotland (HBOS)
