Exactly! Besides, I disagree with the premise of the whole thing. Medicine is a skilled trade. There *should* be a profit motive in order to incentivize better behavior, better care, and better practitioners. It's a fundamental denial of human nature to think that people will just, in this one aspect of life, work hard and give of their …
Exactly! Besides, I disagree with the premise of the whole thing. Medicine is a skilled trade. There *should* be a profit motive in order to incentivize better behavior, better care, and better practitioners. It's a fundamental denial of human nature to think that people will just, in this one aspect of life, work hard and give of their time and skill freely when that isn't and shouldn't be the expectation in any other field.
One of my closest friends is a research oncologist at a leading university hospital; i.e., someone who tries to find remedies for cancers. CEOs of insurance companies make more in a week than my friend does in a whole year. Income is not and has never been based on the value of someone's contributions to society. The man who makes the most money is the one who can find the most efficient ways to exploit others, dodge taxes, and skirt regulations. If wealth were actually distributed to people based on how much they benefit humanity, my friend would be making more money than that asshat who got shot did.
That sounds like a decent idea, the problem is almost everyone can make that argument. You think your friend is important, how about the farmers who grow your food, or the truckers who bring it to you, or the people who take away your garbage? Etc. etc.
A huge portion of jobs are absolutely vital to the good functioning of society. (edit: In fact I would argue cancer research is actually a pretty frivolous low importance activity). Allowing all "essential" jobs to hold society hostage for some huge pile of loot because their work is "super important" is going to leave you with not enough resources to go around. What is more it is basically the core conceit of central planning. And central planning, when tried, just categorically produces worse results than market based solutions. These problems are too hard for you or me, or John Maynard Keynes to figure out what everyone's compensation should be.
Now I do think there are perhaps some mildly pernicious things in the US executive compensation realm. Them sitting on each other's boards and being a relatively small subset of people who perhaps don't actually subject each other to market forces. And maybe some nibbling around the edges is warranted.
But ultimately people get paid what they do based on how replaceable they are generally, and that is a GREAT system. Sure some CEOs are shitheels who play golf and went to some fancy fraternity and are no better than you or me. But many of them are amazing together people who have busted ass their whole life and spend every waking hour thinking about their jobs, not making B&R posts.
Anyway, I understand your instinct, but it is an instinct that leads to a bad place.
“But ultimately people get paid what they do based on how replaceable they are generally, and that is a GREAT system.“
That’s it. For some reason people aren’t taught that these days but that’s 99% of the time how it works. That’s why the warehouse worker, as lovely as he is and as hard as he works, makes far less than the sales guy for the same company. Warehouse guy is replaceable in 10 minutes and sales guy is a month of interviews. It’s really very simple when you consider it through the replaceability lense.
So would a lot of people. Someone’s income is a private matter between private actors. It’s fundamentally gross to assess the “correctness” of someone’s compensation regardless of tax bracket - no different from walking by a busker, looking at the money in their guitar case, and grabbing a handful of bills while saying, “he’s not *that* talented”. I don’t want third parties to feel entitled to criticize my pay, so I don’t do it to others.
If someone's income is a private matter between private actors, then why are you running around saying that "There *should* be a profit motive in order to incentivize better behavior, better care, and better practitioners?" By your own admission, it's not your place to say what should or shouldn't be done with other peoples' paychecks.
And in the case of these CEOs, profits are motivating them to engage in worse, not better, behavior. While health care workers do deserve to be compensated handsomely for their work, not all (or even most) of them are motivated purely by personal profit. My friend is in the line of work because of his love of science and his concern for the wellbeing of others, traits he's possessed since he was a young child. It was never about the money for him, though I acknowledge that he is not representative of everyone in his discipline. I think the best way to improve the performance of medical practitioners is to give them ethical hours, support their research, and give them the resources the need to treat patients as effectively as possible. Those things would also cost money, but they aren't about specifically increasing the salaries of certain individuals.
There’s a tremendous difference between parsing how *much* someone should make and saying in the abstract that people should be incentivized monetarily in order to ensure talented people work in high value fields. The fact that you can’t see that makes me think you’re either trolling, or I’m simply punching well below my intellectual weight class and I don’t stand to gain anything here so I’m blocking you.
Are you very sure more people would get better care if your friend were CEO of a health insurance company instead of the ones that currently are? Not for like the next three weeks or so, but overall.
It's so crazy to find one of your types out here amongst the normal, reasonable adults. Did you feel super duper itchy with the insertion of "asshat" there?
Exactly! Besides, I disagree with the premise of the whole thing. Medicine is a skilled trade. There *should* be a profit motive in order to incentivize better behavior, better care, and better practitioners. It's a fundamental denial of human nature to think that people will just, in this one aspect of life, work hard and give of their time and skill freely when that isn't and shouldn't be the expectation in any other field.
One of my closest friends is a research oncologist at a leading university hospital; i.e., someone who tries to find remedies for cancers. CEOs of insurance companies make more in a week than my friend does in a whole year. Income is not and has never been based on the value of someone's contributions to society. The man who makes the most money is the one who can find the most efficient ways to exploit others, dodge taxes, and skirt regulations. If wealth were actually distributed to people based on how much they benefit humanity, my friend would be making more money than that asshat who got shot did.
That sounds like a decent idea, the problem is almost everyone can make that argument. You think your friend is important, how about the farmers who grow your food, or the truckers who bring it to you, or the people who take away your garbage? Etc. etc.
A huge portion of jobs are absolutely vital to the good functioning of society. (edit: In fact I would argue cancer research is actually a pretty frivolous low importance activity). Allowing all "essential" jobs to hold society hostage for some huge pile of loot because their work is "super important" is going to leave you with not enough resources to go around. What is more it is basically the core conceit of central planning. And central planning, when tried, just categorically produces worse results than market based solutions. These problems are too hard for you or me, or John Maynard Keynes to figure out what everyone's compensation should be.
Now I do think there are perhaps some mildly pernicious things in the US executive compensation realm. Them sitting on each other's boards and being a relatively small subset of people who perhaps don't actually subject each other to market forces. And maybe some nibbling around the edges is warranted.
But ultimately people get paid what they do based on how replaceable they are generally, and that is a GREAT system. Sure some CEOs are shitheels who play golf and went to some fancy fraternity and are no better than you or me. But many of them are amazing together people who have busted ass their whole life and spend every waking hour thinking about their jobs, not making B&R posts.
Anyway, I understand your instinct, but it is an instinct that leads to a bad place.
“But ultimately people get paid what they do based on how replaceable they are generally, and that is a GREAT system.“
That’s it. For some reason people aren’t taught that these days but that’s 99% of the time how it works. That’s why the warehouse worker, as lovely as he is and as hard as he works, makes far less than the sales guy for the same company. Warehouse guy is replaceable in 10 minutes and sales guy is a month of interviews. It’s really very simple when you consider it through the replaceability lense.
So would a lot of people. Someone’s income is a private matter between private actors. It’s fundamentally gross to assess the “correctness” of someone’s compensation regardless of tax bracket - no different from walking by a busker, looking at the money in their guitar case, and grabbing a handful of bills while saying, “he’s not *that* talented”. I don’t want third parties to feel entitled to criticize my pay, so I don’t do it to others.
If someone's income is a private matter between private actors, then why are you running around saying that "There *should* be a profit motive in order to incentivize better behavior, better care, and better practitioners?" By your own admission, it's not your place to say what should or shouldn't be done with other peoples' paychecks.
And in the case of these CEOs, profits are motivating them to engage in worse, not better, behavior. While health care workers do deserve to be compensated handsomely for their work, not all (or even most) of them are motivated purely by personal profit. My friend is in the line of work because of his love of science and his concern for the wellbeing of others, traits he's possessed since he was a young child. It was never about the money for him, though I acknowledge that he is not representative of everyone in his discipline. I think the best way to improve the performance of medical practitioners is to give them ethical hours, support their research, and give them the resources the need to treat patients as effectively as possible. Those things would also cost money, but they aren't about specifically increasing the salaries of certain individuals.
There’s a tremendous difference between parsing how *much* someone should make and saying in the abstract that people should be incentivized monetarily in order to ensure talented people work in high value fields. The fact that you can’t see that makes me think you’re either trolling, or I’m simply punching well below my intellectual weight class and I don’t stand to gain anything here so I’m blocking you.
He demolished your own line of "reasoning" but yeah, you're the one punching below your weight. Lmao!
Oh don’t worry, I didn’t expect *you* to be able to follow it either! I have a ball though; perhaps you’d like to bounce it?
Wow, you sure showed her
Someone sure loves to be contradicted.
Are you very sure more people would get better care if your friend were CEO of a health insurance company instead of the ones that currently are? Not for like the next three weeks or so, but overall.
Thank you, a glimmer of reason in an ocean of libertarian-adjacent rhetoric.
That’s why I hate articles about the “most successful women”. Getting paid a crap ton doesn’t mean you do something worthwhile it that you work hard.
You might not like it, but this is basically how capitalism already distributes resources.
It's so crazy to find one of your types out here amongst the normal, reasonable adults. Did you feel super duper itchy with the insertion of "asshat" there?
Wait, you mean from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs doesn’t work? I’m shocked.
It's just a theory of mine, it's never *really* been tried. Big if true though.