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

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

#151

Post by __turbobrew__ » Fri, May 28, 2021, 9:05 PM UTC

Covid has got me thinking about the government’s role in social welfare.

Providing social welfare through money allows for people to misallocate the money or skim off the top of the money. For the vast majority of people their covid stimulation money did not go into their pockets, it went to their landlord or their mortgage holder resulting in a massive wealth transfer from public funds to banks and those who own land.

I think the government should directly supply the basic needs of its citizens instead of using money as an intermediary for supplying social welfare. Money is only a means to an end for obtaining the basic necessities to live: you cannot eat a dollar bill for nutrition or sleep under a dollar bill for shelter. Government provided housing and food should be available to any citizen — no questions asked. At that point you can get rid of all welfare programs since the government is directly supplying the basic necessities for those in need.

People would still be incentivized to work in order to obtain luxuries which are not supplied by the government: a private house, travelling, a car, etc.

Stories like this further affirm that handing out money is not a good way for the government to provide welfare.

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

#152

Post by shkkmo » Fri, May 28, 2021, 9:05 PM UTC

swiley wrote: post #117

hathym wrote: post #5

My 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.

The percentage of a companies stock that is owned by employees is rarely big enough to make this in anyway close to efficient.

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

#153

Post by ThePhysicist » Fri, May 28, 2021, 9:05 PM UTC

I stopped using them around two years ago when I was finally fed up with the increasing amount of dark patterns and gaslighting they did on their site. The reviews also became more and more inflated, I stayed at places with a 8.9 rating that were really shabby and subpar. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I booked a room at a hotel that had great reviews and lovely photographs, only to come to a place that was in the middle of being remodeled, with torn down walls and entry through a construction site. Also, most hotels will actually allow you to book rooms at lower prices and with less severe cancellation policies when calling them directly.

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

#154

Post by pwillia7 » Fri, May 28, 2021, 9:05 PM UTC

deathcalibur wrote: post #72

toxik wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would have to be A LOT of money for people to stop going to their jobs. In a more realistic scenario: Maybe some people would quit their jobs because they gained some independence. Is that bad?

The problem isn't really people quitting actually because like you said, that could be good. It's more like the business can't pay to stay open because there aren't enough customers to cover the variable costs. So now the business is closed and you have no where to spend your money... This realistically only affects small businesses like your local grocery store or whatever. Once the pandemic lifts, all that cheap pr…

It's weird how the 'infallible invisible hand of the market' folks don't believe in it in practice. All the 'isms' seem like convenient excuses to justify selfish behavior in whatever way suits the argument and not these well thought out concrete theorems like we were lead to believe.

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

#155

Post by raarts » Fri, May 28, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #15

oneplane wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a deal where companies wouldn't discard the workforce in exchange for money. It didn't come with a ban on bonuses, but it did come with a bunch of middle-aged white men frowning at different middle-aged white men for not pausing the bonus culture.

What does age/race/gender have to do with this?

Critical Race Theory or - in other words - anti-white racism is seeping into western culture everywhere. People need to wake up to this. It offer no solutions only deconstruction.

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

#156

Post by manquer » Fri, May 28, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

birken wrote: post #93

mdorazio wrote: post #73

Earlier 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.

I'm sure the employees would much rather have been laid off to stick it to the asset holders.

With weaker demand rents would have actually fallen a lot more than now. That in turn would have an impact on asset prices in the long term.

Will it be fairer to employees ? I don't know, there will be lot more pain for employees without government intervention.

However with Quantitative Easing or bailouts and COVID loans means the rich are not paying the same price as well, that is why rich are becoming richer, poor suffer either way.

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

#157

Post by jiofih » Fri, May 28, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

necovek wrote: post #92

It seems that most of that €28M was "mostly" paid out in "shares": iow, minimal cash was transferred. That may make it both better or worse for everyone else at Booking.com (if shares go back in value as travel gets reinstated, it will effectively be more than that), but the aid itself was not used to cover these bonuses. Basically, Booking.com shareholders have redistributed their shares to a couple of employees. If…

The company stock actually shot up during the pandemic, from a low of $1400 to over $2200, which was unthinkable before. It’s unlikely to go higher.

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

#158

Post by oneplane » Fri, May 28, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

Egidius wrote: post #11

oneplane wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a deal where companies wouldn't discard the workforce in exchange for money. It didn't come with a ban on bonuses, but it did come with a bunch of middle-aged white men frowning at different middle-aged white men for not pausing the bonus culture.

While booking in fact got rid of 25% of their workforce

Oh yeah, totally forgot about that. I guess it's better than purging 80% or whatever they had in mind.

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

#159

Post by andrepd » Fri, May 28, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

tracer4201 wrote: post #114

maxsilver wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 wor…

Please re-read the comment.

> They could temporarily lay off all their staff

So you pay people's salaries while they're furloughed. Together with moratoria (don't know if this is the word) on loans this means companies get “paused” while lockdowns are ongoing and don't shut down.

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

#160

Post by jessaustin » Fri, May 28, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

ralph84 wrote: post #3

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

This was version 2. Version 1 was the "great recession", when several investment banks found themselves insolvent after cluelessly underwriting an overvaluation of American homes. It had been their custom to play a sort of musical chairs with overvalued assets, unloading them on clients and other victims, but eventually they forgot how that game typically ends. After a small amount of public discussion, it was decided that a certain favored subgroup of the investment banks would be bailed out by the public but that their debtors would all lose their homes.

This time around, that modicum of public discussion was avoided but we all gave those who can afford teams of lobbyists and lawyers lots of money anyway. For version 3, we can expect automatic deductions from the checking accounts of the bottom half of the income bracket, with automatic credit card transactions against those without checking accounts, to be transferred directly to entertainment allowances for Bezos, Musk, Gates, Buffett, MbL, and various estranged spouses thereof. "Representative government" seems fine until one looks more closely at who is actually represented.