Obscene!

[SasaS]

10 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

I don't believe there is such a thing as a country with a "bad" economy but a "good" society.  The criteria for deciding whether or not a country's economy is "good" must surely address whether it works for the people of the country.  You can have growth in GDP per capita, but if 0.1% of the people keep 90% of the national income, leaving everyone else in poverty, then that's not a good economy.

 

I don't deny the initial hardwork and talent that went into founding most massive corporations.  What I do doubt is that it takes continued hardwork and talent - incentivised by tax-free accumulation of wealth - to turn a $4 billion outfit into something much bigger.  Once a corporation has reached a certain size, its continued growth doesn't depend on whether the CEO works a 60 hour week: its continued growth depends largely on its ability (for want of a better phrase) to throw its weight around. iI can squeeze favourable terms from local and national governments, from its suppliers and from its workforce simply because it's so big.

 

As for giving control of Amazon to a Government body, I've specifically ruled that out.  If Bezos had to sell some shares to pay his tax bill, it would little sense for the Government to be giving him cash for the shares, so he could give the cash back to them.  Let him sell the shares on to someone else, or find some other way to pay his tax bill.

Well, you were the one asking the question what the good economy was, in general, an economy which is prosperous for most people.

Your big company throwing its weight around would remain the same even after Bezos has sold his shares and paid his taxes, ultimately, it is not about him, it is about his company's dominance. If you force all super rich to sell what they have in shares, you will probably just rearrange percentages, it is only a market value depending on the ability of the market to actually absorb this value by paying for the share, which is highly doubtful for me. For example, lest say entire global market is worth a thousand billions, lets say 30% is held by pension and similar sovereign funds, 30% by various hedge, mutual, asset management and all sorts of other investment funds, 20% by small medium and big private investors, 20% is the excess value held by Bezos and super rich. Who will buy this 20% of the entire market? In particular when you create a situation when everybody must think who is next, how safe are my investments?

I would go the other way, I would make it mandatory that you get some of your pay in shares of the company you work for, lets say at least 25% on top of your wages. That way, even if you remained at a low pay entry level position at Amazon for 20 years, you would be participating in benefiting from the huge jump in value of the company you work for. You would also be rewarded not only for your labour but also for "investing" your labour, as an additional value created. If the value of the company you worked for plummeted you'd be financially punished, therefore you would be incentivized to be aware of what is going on, behave like an activist investor, push to remove bad management at a shareholders meeting etc. I think everybody should own a stake in an organization they work for, with real, marketable value. I don't know how that would work for public sector though. 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Your proposal would only work if there is always a direct causal relationship between the amount and quality of work that goes into a company and the prices of shares of that company.

 

There isn't.

[SasaS]

29 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Your proposal would only work if there is always a direct causal relationship between the amount and quality of work that goes into a company and the prices of shares of that company.

 

There isn't.

Don't know what you mean by a direct causal relationship, market tends to reward companies doing well, at least as much as it is possible and outside industry specific bubbles. It is much more common that it is too optimistic about a company, than the other way round.