Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nltimes.nl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 346 posts

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

#261

Post by aembleton »

Sharlin wrote: post #208
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #151

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 lan…

This… has been tried, many times, and been found to not work too well. First off, unless you socialize the whole economy (well, that has been tried as well), government-provided food is still bought from somebody , by the government, and typically this is seen as a superfluous and inefficient extra step. Second, people very much like going to a supermarket and being able to pick their groceries and other necessities,…

> Government-provided food is still bought from somebody, by the government, and typically this is seen as a superfluous and inefficient extra step.

Why is this seen as superfluous? We all have to eat; so why not bulk buy food for the population, this could even replace subsidies for farmers; just buy from your own farmers in preference to importing. After all, one of the reasons for providing subsidies to farmers is to ensure that you can grow food for your population in a time of need; perhaps we should do that all of the time.

During the second world war, many were bombed out of their homes and couldn't prepare food. The British government set up British Restaurants [1] to provide nutritious meals; we could do that now, without all of the overhead of fighting a world war. This would also help to feed those children who are going hungry, as many now are [2].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Restaurant

2. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/03/exclusive-fi...

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

#262

Post by aembleton »

hervature wrote: post #179
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #151

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 lan…

How much food and what quality? Do I get to ask for tomahawk steaks every meal and an extra one to bring home to my dog? Is everyone entitled to an avocado or just those that live close to an avocado farm? There is no easy answer to this and you bet a government mandated system would be heavily lobbied to include/exclude certain things. For housing, do you get to decide where you live? Or does the government set up a…

> How much food and what quality?

As much as you like; grown in your country by your farmers instead of subsidising them; just guarantee a purchase of their crops.

> Do I get to ask for tomahawk steaks every meal and an extra one to bring home to my dog?

No, you'd be lucky to get any meat as it is inefficient and would be considered a luxury that you can purchase yourself. If you want that, get a job.

> Is everyone entitled to an avocado or just those that live close to an avocado farm?

If you grow avocados in your country, then sure; you can have an avocado as part of a balanced meal.

> There is no easy answer to this and you bet a government mandated system would be heavily lobbied to include/exclude certain things.

Much like existing farming subsidies then.

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

#263

Post by aembleton »

necovek wrote: post #204
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #151

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 lan…

To add another wrinkle to your "proposal", the cost of moving is also very real. If a money helps you remain in your current home for a couple of months that allows you re-establish your income stream without having to both spend money on moving and disrupt your life entirely (imagine having kids switch schools along the way too). If you are going to help people in need, the best way to do it is with money. Sure, som…

> If you are going to help people in need, the best way to do it is with money.

Why is money the best way to help people? We all need to eat, so why not provide basic nutritional food to your population?

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

#264

Post by jVinc »

The base position taken in some countries of not providing bailouts, or bailouts above a certain limit, to companies who carried out stock buybacks or issued dividends was fantastic in my opinion, because it makes situations like this extremely bad for the company.

Of cause a company would want to give huge bonuses to execs who manage to pull in a huge amount of money from the state, that's great for the company. Why should a company care if executives are being rewarded or are being selfish if it also benefits the company and owners overall?

But with the exception to the aid, that would only be possible if the same execs brutally punished the stock owners, which would obviously put them in bad light for being selfish and not just doing good for the company.

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

#265

Post by jVinc »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #13

It's interesting the CFO got more than 3x the CEO, and more than 2x CEO + VP. Does anyone know the reasoning behind that? It seems a bit shady to me in general for a CFO to be paid large performance bonuses.

Seems obvious that the CFO was the main driver of the raid against the states, also in a position to easily blow up everything, so he takes the majority stake of the pillaging.

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

#266

Post by undersuit »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #90
ralph84 wrote: post #3

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

>via inflation The poor tend to be net borrowers. The rich tend to be net lenders. Inflation makes the poor less in debt by lowering the real value of payback. Inflation helps borrowers.

The poor don't have fixed interest rates on their debt.

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

#267

Post by csomar »

slowhand09 wrote: post #67
ralph84 wrote: post #3

Directly 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.

Two things: One, this was the supposed goal of such a loan (keep jobs, and not sign multi-million bonuses to CEOs). Two, you could give this to a small business and keep as many jobs (on total) if not more. However, bigger companies have better means to navigate complex governmental schemes. This means people who have substantially more wealth (owners of big companies) get an easy ride during such a crisis while the smaller guys get screwed.

Or, you know, don't give money to anybody. You'll have some people bailed out through deflation, and some other screwed because they are over-leveraged. Whatever happened to being responsible and putting some money aside for a crisis?

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

#269

Post by coliveira »

ralph84 wrote: post #3

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

The combined indirect result of the housing crisis and the COVID crisis is that the upper class doesn't fear recessions anymore. They now have the bail out machine very well tested and oiled. At any sign of recessions they will force governments to bail out their bad investments and let the population die of starvation if necessary.

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

#270

Post by csomar »

azinman2 wrote: post #104
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…

Right so then after cash runs out no one has a job and no businesses exist? Companies are more that just a collection of people.

If you give cash to people, they'll use to buy stuff from corporations, Mom&Pop, and uber food. That should create jobs?
Post reply on HN