you might say that star athletes and Goldman Sachs nabobs both are parts of winner-take-all markets, where a small number of "winners" reap millions and the rest just barely make it. These markets are inefficient, according to neoclassicals. But at least athletes are productive (of entertainment). G-S bucksbarons make no positive contribution to society at all, as far as I can tell.
On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 9:22 AM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote: > Ok, that's a familiar theme of self-justification among the over-paid, > but it is still interesting to see how defensive these guys are > getting. It is almost like they know how absurd this all is: > http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/andrew-clark-on-america/2010/jan/05/goldmansachs-banks > --------------------------------------snip > We mere mortals need to shape up our thinking. Goldman Sachs' > employees are so special that they ought to be viewed in the same > category as professional athletes and movie stars, according to a > board member of the Wall Street behemoth. > > Bill George, a former boss of the medical technology firm Medtronic > who has been a Goldman Sachs director since 2002, has delivered a > curious defence of the bank's likely payout of $22bn to its employees > for 2009 in an interview with a video website, BigThink.com. > > [...] > > But George then goes off on another riff, saying he can't help it if > film stars, athletes and bankers are overvalued by society en masse. > > "I can't justify the relationship between a trader's bonus and what a > schoolteacher makes, for instance. I mean in our society - we have a > much deeper societal issue," he says. "It's hard for me to justify > what an athlete makes when he plays basketball compared to what a > schoolteacher makes or even an engineer...I worry about these a lot > but I haven't figured out how to solve it yet, either." > > George, incidentally, is a director of one other public company - > ExxonMobil - giving him a clean sweep of the two US firms viewed with > the greatest suspicion by people on the left. > > > > > > > > > > -raghu. > > > > -- > "I don't care who you are, Fatso. Get the reindeer off my roof!" > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
