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The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

seths.blog

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Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#31

Post by baq »

throwitaway222 wrote: post #15

After aging I'm starting to have new views on large salaries: 1. The money is just going to be saved. Net gain to the person is they're probably going to live for the rest of their life off dividends. Net gain to society, is any money taken out of circulation fights inflation. 2. If you pay someone a lot of money they will, essentially, spend it on other people. Either through salary or just buying shit. The richest…

Your point 2 is suspiciously close to the trickle down economy hypothesis which doesn’t work - I mean yes they spend that money but they spend both absolutely and relatively much more on point 1.

Also, I have serious doubts that buying assets fights inflation. It’s only true if the money ends up locked in some central bank account, otherwise someone else gets it and can spend it on goods or services instead of different financial assets.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#32

Post by mcguire »

latexr wrote: post #23

> (Aside: should the guys who drive an armored car that carries millions of dollars in bonds get paid more than the guys that drive an armored car that only carries thousands of dollars in cash? Does the amount of money handled change the difficult of the work?) Possibly, yes. The amount of money handled might affect the likelihood of a heist, and the required preparedness of the robbers. Which in turn requires more…

Want to know something weird?

A convenience store or liquor store is much more likely to be robbed than a bank.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#33

Post by remoquete »

throwitaway222 wrote: post #15

After aging I'm starting to have new views on large salaries: 1. The money is just going to be saved. Net gain to the person is they're probably going to live for the rest of their life off dividends. Net gain to society, is any money taken out of circulation fights inflation. 2. If you pay someone a lot of money they will, essentially, spend it on other people. Either through salary or just buying shit. The richest…

Isn't point 2 a summarized version of trickle-down economics, which, by the way, has been repeatedly proven not to be effective? https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/econom...

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#34

Post by bongodongobob »

ipaddr wrote: post #12
j7ake wrote: post #7

Bigger salaries attracts more people, so you can have your pick of your favorite candidate. A bad scenario is the public school teacher path: they need better marketing and should be paid on par with the congressman, senators, and other highly paid politicians in government.

Would you end up with money seekers like failed politicians?

No, because teaching is fucking hard. You aren't accumulating power. And you actually have to show up every day.

Being a teacher is probably the opposite of being a politician.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#35

Post by devops_palmer »

throwitaway222 wrote: post #15

After aging I'm starting to have new views on large salaries: 1. The money is just going to be saved. Net gain to the person is they're probably going to live for the rest of their life off dividends. Net gain to society, is any money taken out of circulation fights inflation. 2. If you pay someone a lot of money they will, essentially, spend it on other people. Either through salary or just buying shit. The richest…

Trickle-down economics. It sounds like a good idea, but in practice, the system is much less about dollars and cents and more about intangible deals and than goods and services. So the vast majority of wealth in the system never actually is seen by the less wealthy. It just endlessly circulates amongst the very wealthy.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#36

Post by mcguire »

michalf6 wrote: post #21
jeltz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point still stands. Beyond some amount the absolute amount of money really stops to matter

The ability to exert power and influence over things you value continues to scale with money. There's more to life than consumption.

Money is power.

Of course, the people who think that's a super brilliant great idea are those with a lot of money or those who somehow expect to get a lot of money.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#37

Post by mullingitover »

Beyond a few million a year, the rest of the comp is really providing something that's more difficult to purchase with money: power.

So, while there's a diminishing return on the benefits of additional money in a person's life, a certain subset of people have an insatiable desire for more power. It's problematic in what's supposed to be a democratic society with a fairly flat amount of power distributed among citizens. We essentially recreate a hereditary nobility, which reduces the fitness of our civilization as a whole since we no longer have the most qualified people making the decisions.

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#38

Post by kevinmchugh »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #3

Name the other axes, Seth. What are they? What else is there but money? With sufficient money you can fill your positions instantly with top talent. Anyone pretending there are other answers is probably guilty of lowballing, wanting to lowball or the English translation of my name: a grape fox.

Equity? If you have the choice of a million dollars in salary and 100,000 shares or 1.1 million in salary and 50,000 shares, probably you should take the lower salary

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#39

Post by [deleted] »

gerash wrote: post #26
throwitaway222 wrote: post #15

After aging I'm starting to have new views on large salaries: 1. The money is just going to be saved. Net gain to the person is they're probably going to live for the rest of their life off dividends. Net gain to society, is any money taken out of circulation fights inflation. 2. If you pay someone a lot of money they will, essentially, spend it on other people. Either through salary or just buying shit. The richest…

So you're arguing you can allocate capital inefficiently and it's not a problem. I disagree. Capital should be allocated fairly so those who are doing the work stay motivated and those who are not doing anything aren't disproportionately rewarded. Do you manage your own money this way? Do spend 10 grands on a running shoe because, well, it will eventually make the whole society wealthier and improve standards of livi…

[deleted]

Re: The myth of big salaries (it's all marketing)

#40

Post by baq »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #6

> After a million dollars or so in salary, the absolute amount that a person is paid has no real impact on their life. They can't eat more meals in a day or wear more shoes There is more to life than food and shoes? This is one of the dumbest things I’ve read.

Try to generalize, you might come up with something like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility
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