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Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

wikileaks.org

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Re: Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

#191

Post by swombat »

_mulder_ wrote: post #128
swombat wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting challenge. We've posted revenue numbers on our blog, but not salary information. That said, the first job ad we put out will have pretty clear salary information, so, ok, I'll answer. Here's the payscale in short, then. There are 2 main roles within the company: client management and sales. Salespeople get £20k p.a., plus a 15% commission on sales, plus a share of the bonus pool. The base salary…

Kudos for being so open. (Although to relate the point back to the Original thread about Government openness, Governments (and lots of Big Corps) also tend to be quite transparent about Salary bands, Bonus, etc.) Now to derail the discussion: How do you reward excellence? There will surely come a time where an employee has been working considerably harder than his colleagues asks for a pay-increase. How do you envisi…

> How do you reward excellence? There will surely come a time where an employee has been working considerably harder than his colleagues asks for a pay-increase. How do you envision this would go down with the other employees? Your Client-Manager salary infact seems to be based purely on duration of service, not output.

First, it's worth noting that this is a work in progress. We have quarterly meetings where the whole company decides on what changes they want to see made to the compensation scheme, so this stuff might very well change over time.

Secondly, they are rewarded for their hard work already - but as a team, rather than individually - via the bonus scheme. Whatever's left of their 50% of revenue is in the bonus pool, so if they generate an extra £100k of revenue, that will translate into an extra £50k of bonus pool.

Are there individual incentives? Not at the moment. They may well come in in the future, of course.

> Also, your company seems very unique to only have two roles, which perhaps explains why you can reveal this information freely. Full transparency would include how much you get paid, how much the office admin gets paid, the lawyers, accountants, coders, etc.

My cofounder and I get paid the amount of wage and dividends that allows us to pay no income tax. It's pretty standard (and not all that high) in the UK. There's just one director and one office manager, so I'm hesitant to post their current salaries as that is private and specific information, at least outside the company, I think...

Re: Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

#192

Post by balabaster »

eru wrote: post #178
balabaster wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify: It's my right, if I so choose, to keep my salary and any other personal financial information private from the rest of the world (minus of course, my employer and the IRS). So your releasing that information is a violation of my privacy.

Which jurisdiction are you talking about? swombat looks like they are sitting in the UK.

I grew up in the UK and know that the UK abides by the European Convention for Human Rights which has a clause 8(1) concerning privacy. The Human Rights Act 1998 incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. Article 8(1) of the Convention provides guarantees that such personal matters are kept private unless you explicitly provide consent for them to be released.

The European Union takes this matter pretty seriously - hence the whole do not track and cookie notification policies that you see with European websites these days. I live in Canada now, and here they have two federal privacy laws, the Privacy Act and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act - though some provinces are deemed federally exempt because they have their own legislation that is substantially similar in nature to the federal mandates. I guess this "right" isn't accounted for in U.S. law?

Re: Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

#193

Post by mpyne »

tedunangst wrote: post #185
mpyne wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still waiting for the WikiLeaks major leaks about Moscow that we were all promised. At least, promised until Assange got his TV show on Russia Today.

I was personally more interested in the Bank of America files, but I think they're gone now too.

I had heard DDB had erased those before he left. Never heard why though, unless it was supposed to be one last 'fuck you' to Assange before he got booted out.

Re: Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

#194

Post by eru »

jafaku wrote: post #187
eru wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do destroyed buildings lead to such craziness?

It's not just "destroyed buildings", like in a few military bases here and there. Read again.

I guess taking on that quote was a pot-shot. And, yes, the US have a role to play in North Korea. After all the Kims, at least initially, built their reputation in Korea on fighting the Americans.

Re: Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

#195

Post by swombat »

balabaster wrote: post #143
swombat wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it violate any rights to privacy? What rights are you talking about, anyway? The only thing we don't share openly in this manner is personal health problems.

To clarify: It's my right, if I so choose, to keep my salary and any other personal financial information private from the rest of the world (minus of course, my employer and the IRS). So your releasing that information is a violation of my privacy.

Nope, it's not a right - or rather, that right is not protected in any kind of legal document. It's not a legal right or even a legal privilege. It's just a custom that stems out of the fact that most employers are worried about employees knowing each other's salaries, because often they have multiple people doing more or less the same job for very different salaries.

Re: Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

#196

Post by swombat »

balabaster wrote: post #192
eru wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which jurisdiction are you talking about? swombat looks like they are sitting in the UK.

I grew up in the UK and know that the UK abides by the European Convention for Human Rights which has a clause 8(1) concerning privacy. The Human Rights Act 1998 incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. Article 8(1) of the Convention provides guarantees that such personal matters are kept private unless you explicitly provide consent for them to be released. The European Union takes this matt…

Here's article 8 of the convention:

> Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life

> 1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

> There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

I am not a lawyer, however I think this refers to personal and family matters. How much you're being paid by your employer is not a personal matter, it's a business matter.

There are many public employees whose salaries are published openly and regularly. If this was a breach of human rights, then it is a breach that the UK government is guilty of on a regular basis.

Ref: http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/005.htm

Re: Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

#197

Post by logfromblammo »

twoodfin wrote: post #84
logfromblammo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like, for instance, that the Japanese diplomatic codes had been broken and that the administration had prior knowledge of an imminent attack on Pearl Harbor, yet chose to do nothing, because the public response would finally allow the U.S. to enter the war? Absolutely, it would have been heroic. It might have led to real justice instead of ruinous warmongering.

It seems that we're fated to see every conspiracy theory on hn eventually. Wikipedia covers the SIGINT available prior to Pearl Harbor pretty well[1]. There is no evidence that anyone in the entire U.S. civilian or military hierarchy had advance knowledge of the attack. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_on...

Firstly, it is a conspiracy hypothesis. There is no expectation that it conforms with the facts of history. It was presented to illustrate how a timely leak of a secret might have impacted history positively, rather than negatively, as implied in a previous post.

Secondly, even if it were remotely true, there would have been significant incentives for any involved parties to alter or hide any evidence. History continues to be written by the victors, and crackpots continue to doubt it.

Re: Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

#198

Post by logfromblammo »

justinpombrio wrote: post #170
sliverstorm wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why should your readers accept your unsubstantiated hypothesis The typical line of thinking with conspiracy theories seems to be the less substantiated the theory, the more credence it should be lent, under the logic that the government is suppressing evidence. So basically the less evidence, the more believable. Beautiful, isn't it?

Except for the fact that there are more false statements than true ones...

That appears to be a conjecture worthy of a thesis in philosophy and/or mathematics.

And where do statements of indeterminate truthfulness fit in?

Re: Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

#199

Post by logfromblammo »

_mulder_ wrote: post #131
logfromblammo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like, for instance, that the Japanese diplomatic codes had been broken and that the administration had prior knowledge of an imminent attack on Pearl Harbor, yet chose to do nothing, because the public response would finally allow the U.S. to enter the war? Absolutely, it would have been heroic. It might have led to real justice instead of ruinous warmongering.

Heroic how exactly? If the US had not entered the war when it did, the whole of Europe, and perhaps the rest of the world, would have probably ended up under Nazi control. There are many instances of Allied forces breaking codes but not acting on them, because to do so would have signalled to the enemy that their codes had been broken and the advantage would be lost. This comes back to my post further down, most indi…

I think that unlikely. Germany would have fallen to the Russians. Soviet Europe would have stayed that way for a few decades before reverting to independent mixed economies. The real question is what would have happened between China and Japan, without the American nukes.

Re: Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

#200

Post by logfromblammo »

the_af wrote: post #157
_mulder_ wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heroic how exactly? If the US had not entered the war when it did, the whole of Europe, and perhaps the rest of the world, would have probably ended up under Nazi control. There are many instances of Allied forces breaking codes but not acting on them, because to do so would have signalled to the enemy that their codes had been broken and the advantage would be lost. This comes back to my post further down, most indi…

I'm no history buff, but I think that's unlikely. It's true the US had an isolationist movement, and even business ties to Germany, but it would have eventually entered the war against Nazi Germany. After all, it was already supporting its allies (UK, Soviet Union, etc) via materiel through the Lend-Lease program, before the attack on Pearl Harbor ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-lease ) Also, without wanting to d…

What if the US stayed out of Europe and only declared war against Japan? If the US had invaded Manchuria while Stalin was still busy with Europe, the Chinese civil war might have panned out differently.
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