Posted by
Andrews on Friday, March 20, 2009 12:50:04 PM
I have not been Mrs. Chavez's biggest booster in the past, and with good cause, but in this one case, I believe in giving praise when it is due. For many, many months I have been arguing against silliness such as CEO salary caps, and now the AIG frenzy, and it seemed at times I was absolutely alone in understanding that you don't save a company by refusing to pay for decent employees. So it was nice to read
Mrs. Chavez's most recent article and realize that at least one other person gets it.
Now if only one voice in Washingtonw ould voice similarly sensible sentiments.
POSTSCRIPT
For those who are interested, here is a list of the articles I wrote on this topic:
A Really Foolish Idea
Greed
Greed Part 2
A Little More On CEO Salaries
Another Bad Idea
Crippling Business
AIG Absurdities
I discuss some of the likely consequences of this government tendency to meddle in contractual business relations in my posts "
Inescapable Logic", "
A Reason to be Afraid", "
The Endless Cycle of Intervention", and "
An Analogy For Government". They are not directly on point, but do suggest what the eventual outcome of this meddling will be.
Finally, for those inclined to blame the financial companies, I discuss the true causes of the problem in, among others "
Not Entirely to Blame", "
Didn't I Say This?", "
Explaining Past Crashes", "
The Inflation Engine", "
The Limits of "Scientific" Management", "
Defying Nature", "
My How Things Change", and "
Alan Greenspan's Hubris".
POSTSCRIPT II
By the way, some of my earlier writing assumed the AIG bonuses were optional performance bonuses, but it turns out they were retention bonuses, which makes this even more absurd. Retention bonuses are essentially pay. If you stay so long, you get a bonus of $X. It is a contractual obligation and part of your income. I had that at various jobs and had my employer tried to reneg, I would ahve sued and won. So to think AIG could have backed out of a contractual obligation to pay salaries is absurd. I thought the Democrats were for the rights of "workers", so why are they suggesting it would be right for an employer to withhold salary?