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Tim Cook called Pelosi to warn her against disrupting the iPhone with antitrust

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Re: Tim Cook called Pelosi to warn her against disrupting the iPhone with antitrust

#21

Post by joshuamorton »

cdot2 wrote: post #16
x0x0 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pelosi doesn't get paid enough. She's one of the leaders of a country with a $23T economy and a $4.8T federal budget. She maintains houses in two different (very) high COL areas, and has a punishing work and travel schedule. We'd be shocked at an exec in a round C company, helping lead 100+ people, who didn't make more than that.

Pelosi doesn't get paid enough is a surface of the sun level hot take.

It really isn't. If your goal was to make investing while in congress less appealing, you'd pass laws, yes, but also pay people more. AoC had made the point before that if you make congressional pay too low, it becomes only feasible for the already-wealthy to maintain a political career. Also note that being a congressperson has weird extra expenses, you usually need to have two homes, one in DC and one in your home state, so expenses will naturally be higher than average.

(this is one of the reasons that, e.g. Trump claiming to donate his presidential salary was frowned upon: Sure it sounds nice at first, but it implies that either he'll profit off of the presidency in other ways, or if that becomes a norm, that only those who can afford to donate their salary should become president)

Re: Tim Cook called Pelosi to warn her against disrupting the iPhone with antitrust

#22

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #21
cdot2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pelosi doesn't get paid enough is a surface of the sun level hot take.

It really isn't. If your goal was to make investing while in congress less appealing, you'd pass laws, yes, but also pay people more. AoC had made the point before that if you make congressional pay too low, it becomes only feasible for the already-wealthy to maintain a political career. Also note that being a congressperson has weird extra expenses, you usually need to have two homes, one in DC and one in your home…

Because when people pass a certain wealth threshold they just say, "that's enough money, I am satisfied."

Re: Tim Cook called Pelosi to warn her against disrupting the iPhone with antitrust

#23

Post by nomel »

unicornporn wrote: post #10
kats wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, she has 33 yoe in congress and only gets paid 225k salary, she better have stocks.

Are you being sarcastic?

With that income, she's well within the top 10%, so following the trend here, there's a > 92.3% chance that she owns stock.

> Of the top 10% of income earners, 92.3% own stock (vs 94.7% in 2016).

> Of the 80-89.9% percentile of income, 86.3% own stock (vs 83.3% in 2016).

> Of the 60-79.9% percentile of income, 71.0% own stock (vs 73.6% in 2016).

> Of the 40-59.9% percentile of income, 55.8% own stock (vs 51.8% in 2016).

> Of the 20-39.9% percentile of income, 34.2% own stock (vs 32.5% in 2016).

> Of the bottom 19.9% percentile of income, just 14.5% own stock (vs 11.6% in 2016).

[1] Sketchy source that uses dated federal source: https://wallethacks.com/stock-ownership-in-america/

Re: Tim Cook called Pelosi to warn her against disrupting the iPhone with antitrust

#24

Post by ALittleLight »

solveit wrote: post #19
Barrin92 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>only gets paid 225k salary That is six times the American median wage, or alternatively it places you in the top 3% of the American income distribution. Is this a bad attempt at sarcasm? That salary, plus I assume a generous pension is enough for her to not own any stocks, which I actually think is something that should be the norm for political representatives, given the blatant conflict of interest.

> top 3% of the American income distribution Pelosi has a good claim to being the most powerful woman in the US, and she makes less than a twentysomething hotshot engineer/banker/consultant/whatever. Any system that actually cared about her not being tempted by conflicts of interest would pay her two more zeroes. You can of course ask why 225k isn't enough, and you can moralise all you want about how 225k should be m…

I think there are two entirely separate concerns. First, is the salary for Speaker of the House sufficient. Second, isn't it a bit of a coincidence that Pelosi and her husband made 100+ million for themselves investing in stocks through his investment company while she was in Congress? Maybe that's just a coincidence.

I don't think we could meaningfully increase salaries. Pelosi is still making money despite having a hundred million. How much more should we pay? What would satiate her or those in her position such that they would be immune from inducements? I think back to Roman politicians, who, despite being monstrously wealthy, were still monstrously corrupt.

Re: Tim Cook called Pelosi to warn her against disrupting the iPhone with antitrust

#26

Post by draw_down »

hulitu wrote: post #5
coolspot wrote: post #4

Russian, Ukrainian and Chinese wiki have an article about “Power of a phone call” (Law by a phone call), which is when in a corrupted state you can solve any problem by calling someone powerful you’re connected to. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%84... https://ru-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%B5%...

You mean US is corrupted ? No way!

Between Pelosi and Cook I’ll take my chances with Cook, thanks.

Re: Tim Cook called Pelosi to warn her against disrupting the iPhone with antitrust

#27

Post by cdot2 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #21
cdot2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pelosi doesn't get paid enough is a surface of the sun level hot take.

It really isn't. If your goal was to make investing while in congress less appealing, you'd pass laws, yes, but also pay people more. AoC had made the point before that if you make congressional pay too low, it becomes only feasible for the already-wealthy to maintain a political career. Also note that being a congressperson has weird extra expenses, you usually need to have two homes, one in DC and one in your home…

"Trump claiming to donate his presidential salary was frowned upon"

Literally every recent president has done this. It only implies that he has enough money to live on and doesn't need a salary. If he hadn't donated it the media would have exploded. I'll add that to the list of instances where people would hate him no matter the decisions he made.

Re: Tim Cook called Pelosi to warn her against disrupting the iPhone with antitrust

#28

Post by solveit »

ALittleLight wrote: post #24
solveit wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> top 3% of the American income distribution Pelosi has a good claim to being the most powerful woman in the US, and she makes less than a twentysomething hotshot engineer/banker/consultant/whatever. Any system that actually cared about her not being tempted by conflicts of interest would pay her two more zeroes. You can of course ask why 225k isn't enough, and you can moralise all you want about how 225k should be m…

I think there are two entirely separate concerns. First, is the salary for Speaker of the House sufficient. Second, isn't it a bit of a coincidence that Pelosi and her husband made 100+ million for themselves investing in stocks through his investment company while she was in Congress? Maybe that's just a coincidence. I don't think we could meaningfully increase salaries. Pelosi is still making money despite having a…

The way to do it is to give a very generous salary and to simultaneously crack down hard on even the appearance of impropriety. Neither is being done right now, and part of the reason is that you can't really do one without the other[1], so you're stuck in a bit of a catch-22.

[1] You can't crack down on on public servants questionably but not clearly criminally making money on the side if everyone that's supposed to be doing the cracking down are also public servants who sympathize (more cynically, are in on the same gig) because they're also making a fraction of what their peers are making. And you can't pay your public servants more when the people are fuming at the individually arguable but clear-in-aggregate corruption that is rampant.

Re: Tim Cook called Pelosi to warn her against disrupting the iPhone with antitrust

#29

Post by cyanydeez »

hulitu wrote: post #5
coolspot wrote: post #4

Russian, Ukrainian and Chinese wiki have an article about “Power of a phone call” (Law by a phone call), which is when in a corrupted state you can solve any problem by calling someone powerful you’re connected to. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%84... https://ru-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%B5%...

You mean US is corrupted ? No way!

not yet snyway. 2022 is the next chance to reject the republican cancer and deal with the symptoms of it.

Re: Tim Cook called Pelosi to warn her against disrupting the iPhone with antitrust

#30

Post by joshuamorton »

cdot2 wrote: post #27
joshuamorton wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really isn't. If your goal was to make investing while in congress less appealing, you'd pass laws, yes, but also pay people more. AoC had made the point before that if you make congressional pay too low, it becomes only feasible for the already-wealthy to maintain a political career. Also note that being a congressperson has weird extra expenses, you usually need to have two homes, one in DC and one in your home…

"Trump claiming to donate his presidential salary was frowned upon" Literally every recent president has done this. It only implies that he has enough money to live on and doesn't need a salary. If he hadn't donated it the media would have exploded. I'll add that to the list of instances where people would hate him no matter the decisions he made.

> Literally every recent president has done this. It only implies that he has enough money to live on and doesn't need a salary.

Obama and Bush didn't. They donated some, but not all, and they certainly din't make it an aspect of their campaign. As far as I can tell, the last president to donate their entire salary was Kennedy.

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