Booking.com gives €28m in bonuses to three top execs; Took €65m in State aid

Post by deathcalibur » Fri, May 28, 2021, 8:36 PM UTC

whatever1 wrote: post #60

deathcalibur wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying you're wrong when I say consider the following: if every individual had a bunch of free money and decided to not work, then the next day they drive to the store and there is no one working... what do they do? Didn't you just cause a ton of inflation? At the end of the day, money doesn't solve problems. Work being done solves problems. How that should affect policy... I have no idea but I can see both s…

Or businesses can increase their unlivable wages. I am certainly willing to pay 30 cents more for my Big Mac so that the employee gets $15/h instead of 8

Post by birken » Fri, May 28, 2021, 8:37 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #73

slowhand09 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not rich here. Wife's company got COVID loans. They were forgiven. Company had to prove money was spent on rent, salaries, benefits. Company didn't make money on it. Employees were able to keep their jobs. No bonuses involved there.

Yes, and what did those employees who would have otherwise been unemployed spend their money on? Likely rent was the #1 item, thus transferring wealth from tax dollars to asset holders.

Post by ska » Fri, May 28, 2021, 8:37 PM UTC

consp wrote: post #55

amelius wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imho, the main error is that they gave away the money unconditionally. The fact that the particular government didn't foresee this outcome is quite astonishing.

The reasonable short notice caused the government to decide the lesser of evils: allow some abuse to help most, (un)fortunately this exposes the excesses. Booking.com "decided" to not take part in the second round three months later mainly due to the legal work being well enough established and in place to force the company to forgo any firing of people and any bonuses to executives. Yes an error, but as always there…

Post by ipaddr » Fri, May 28, 2021, 8:38 PM UTC

slowhand09 wrote: post #57

ralph84 wrote: post #3

Directly via bailouts and indirectly via inflation, COVID was the biggest wealth transfer to the rich in history.

I saw people buying firearms with stimulus checks more than anything else. I saw a couple buy 2 identical $1300 handguns at once. They were joking about the stim checks. And annoyed they'd have to wait a week to pick up their purchases.

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 28, 2021, 8:39 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #10

I'm surprised anyone is surprised. Here in the US we've spent several trillion dollars on Covid relief so far, and there's more to come. When you're dealing with a torrent of printed cash of this magnitude, there's of course going to be a lot of it that ends up in the wrong hands for the wrong reasons.