Earlier quoted context omitted.
The CEO and the VP get the taste of the wig to not make much noise.
"taste of the wig"? I don't know that saying.. is it "wine"?
I suspect a typo for "vig", short for "vigorish".
Booking.com gives €28m in bonuses to three top execs; Took €65m in State aid
111–120 of 346 posts
Re: Booking.com gives €28m in bonuses to three top execs; Took €65m in State aid
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does inflation help the rich? Doesn't that devalue their net worth?
It helps people who are in debt (there's the student loan reduction Biden's been asking for). In theory, it's a wash for assets like stocks and real estate. It hurts bondholders, so especially retirees.
The last 10 years have seen massive asset inflation, unrelated to economic activity.
Re: Booking.com gives €28m in bonuses to three top execs; Took €65m in State aid
#113These "state aids" are coming from the mandatory unemployment insurance scheme that both employees and employers (in this case, Booking) are forced to pay in. It is silly to now blame companies and employees now making use of the insurance that they paid in for years. Imagine crashing your car and the insurance is refusing to pay you, arguing "but you just bought a second car! you don't really need the insurance mone…
From the article: The bonuses were paid because they were "concerned they could otherwise lose the three top executives."
They always say that. its not a great time for executives to look for new work. And in general pay has little to do with performance.
Re: Booking.com gives €28m in bonuses to three top execs; Took €65m in State aid
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Fund people, not companies it depended. large corporation like Apple don't need the money but mom and pop shop that is forced to close during the peak should receive money. the sad thing is corporation that clearly can make it thur covid is receiving the largest amount like https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
>mom and pop shop that is forced to close during the peak should receive money. No, they shouldn't. Don't give any money to any corporations, give all the money exclusively to people. If Mom and Pop run a business, they can get cash as humans to float their business, just like any human could. They could temporarily lay off all their staff (which is OK, because their staff are humans, and are also getting cash) There…
I want to convince you this isn’t a good idea. If all the businesses shut down in my town or city, what happens after? Where do I find work? Especially if I don’t have sufficient capital to start a new business (never mind the skills or training), what will I do then? How does society go back to normal?
Do we stop all output and just have the government mail checks to every individual forever? That’s not going to work. Who is going to produce the things we need to function as a society?
Re: Booking.com gives €28m in bonuses to three top execs; Took €65m in State aid
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Are we saying a rent payment is a “transfer of wealth”? I’m not invested in real estate, but I imagine many people in real estate were just as impacted. Don’t you likely need to pay towards a mortgage and put some aside for capital and day to day maintenance? Your comment is written as if a rent payment is a transfer from one person to directly to someone else’s savings account. I’m not convinced this is true.
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Re: Booking.com gives €28m in bonuses to three top execs; Took €65m in State aid
#116The real error here is public money being given to private companies. Let them break Fund people, not companies
I have to agree, if I want to start a competing reservation platform I would take this "opportunity" to launch it, but because big corps (almost a monopoly for booking.com) are helped in difficult times this makes it almost impossible to have competition or new small players that would have been advantaged by not having the weight of the big players.
Tell that to plentyoffish who took on the dating market and consistently ranked higher than big companies like match.
If bookings.com suddenly disappeared you would have hundreds of players ready to jump in with their own angle. What would you offer? Is bookings.com really holding you back?
Re: Booking.com gives €28m in bonuses to three top execs; Took €65m in State aid
#117My company is buying back millions of its own stock, giving 0€ raise to employees.
Part of me wonders if that's one way to give bonuses to employees while avoiding a tax penalty. Most companies give employees stock via various mechanisms so you end up throwing money away by avoiding it.
Re: Booking.com gives €28m in bonuses to three top execs; Took €65m in State aid
#118Earlier 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.
The COVID relief has helped the rich in the same way that the mortgage tax deduction 'mostly' helps the rich[1]: the majority of the dollars go to aid wealthy people, despite the number of non-wealthy beneficiaries being much higher. [1] https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/358922-mortgage-interest...
That always struck me as an ass-backwards way of looking at taxes. $100 saved by someone near the poverty line is a big deal to them, $100 saved by someone making six figures is not near as much. The recent doubling of the standard deduction is probably one of the biggest (in terms of impact) tax cuts to the lower/middle earners (read: the vast majority of people) in a long time.
Re: Booking.com gives €28m in bonuses to three top execs; Took €65m in State aid
#119Earlier 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…
If you give everyone free money, why do you think people will stop working? We justify giving money to rich people because it will make them work harder, but we fear that giving money to poor people will make them lazier.
I don't believe giving money to poor people will make them lazier, nor do I believe we should give free money to rich people.
Ultimately, they want to give money to people that need it and will put it to good use (for whose definition of good, I don't know... also, we HOPE that is the case but obviously people are biased, politicians included). Sometimes it's individuals who need money, sometimes it's businesses (which is why they did both).
I will tell you that I personally did not need any of the individual stimulus money, but I got the full amount because I don't make a ton; however, there are others who need the money because they have expenses much higher than mine, e.g. they have debt of some kind.
Not trying to muddy the waters. I am trying to say it's not always clear who needs money and who doesn't.
Re: Booking.com gives €28m in bonuses to three top execs; Took €65m in State aid
#120Directly via bailouts and indirectly via inflation, COVID was the biggest wealth transfer to the rich in history.
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.
the company basically got free labor for 2 months. instead of needing to pay employees, the company got to keep its cash (and pay them out to the owners).