I’m almost a 100% with you. The one thing I’d question is some of the CEO pay. In some instances, I think it is ludicrous and a product of a kind of institutional capture. That is, what you might call an internal institutional oligharchy dominates a company and everyone scratches everyone else’s back. In the broader picture, I don’t think this is a huge problem and I certainly don’t think it should be regulated but I don’t think in many corporations that the CEOs are really the Bret Favres of capitalism. I think they are little more like your father. I couldn’t do his job and forget me as CEO unless you’re seeking insolvency. But I think with a least some corporations you could get other people to the job for a lot less. At times this is recognized and will prompt shareholders revolt.
I don't disagree that some CEOs are "overpaid" in the sense that I believe they (in my opinion) get comp beyond the value they create. Roger Goodell is a good example (though not a perfect one, since the NFL is technically a non-profit org). But because value is subjective, it doesn't really matter what I think. What matters is what the individuals who freely choose to pay him that salary think.
Even the vaunted Adam Smith (really more of a plagiarist of his teacher, Francis Hutcheson, than an original thinker - see Rothbard’s “An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought”), did not understand the essential and foundational insight that value is subjective. In fact, Smith’s bungling’ helped pave the way for Marx’s superficially plausible, but disastrously erroneous, labor theory of value.
Favre makes so much because of scale. Even great NFL QBs didn't make life changing money until there was scale. Teachers can make more too, but their earnings will always be limited if they don't scale beyond a small classroom. There are "teachers" (using the word in a broad sense) literally making seven figures on YT.
I’m almost a 100% with you. The one thing I’d question is some of the CEO pay. In some instances, I think it is ludicrous and a product of a kind of institutional capture. That is, what you might call an internal institutional oligharchy dominates a company and everyone scratches everyone else’s back. In the broader picture, I don’t think this is a huge problem and I certainly don’t think it should be regulated but I don’t think in many corporations that the CEOs are really the Bret Favres of capitalism. I think they are little more like your father. I couldn’t do his job and forget me as CEO unless you’re seeking insolvency. But I think with a least some corporations you could get other people to the job for a lot less. At times this is recognized and will prompt shareholders revolt.
I don't disagree that some CEOs are "overpaid" in the sense that I believe they (in my opinion) get comp beyond the value they create. Roger Goodell is a good example (though not a perfect one, since the NFL is technically a non-profit org). But because value is subjective, it doesn't really matter what I think. What matters is what the individuals who freely choose to pay him that salary think.
Even the vaunted Adam Smith (really more of a plagiarist of his teacher, Francis Hutcheson, than an original thinker - see Rothbard’s “An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought”), did not understand the essential and foundational insight that value is subjective. In fact, Smith’s bungling’ helped pave the way for Marx’s superficially plausible, but disastrously erroneous, labor theory of value.
Favre makes so much because of scale. Even great NFL QBs didn't make life changing money until there was scale. Teachers can make more too, but their earnings will always be limited if they don't scale beyond a small classroom. There are "teachers" (using the word in a broad sense) literally making seven figures on YT.