Coming from the software industry, from the computing industry, from the industry with real ideas, any and all information that stems from Wall Street pertaining to the abject greed and opportunism of hare-brained bankers (yes, they were the ones seated in the middle of class with no personality or inclination, but with bland smiles and a distinct slick nature), makes me want to curl up in a ball and declare to the world the unfairness of it all.
And we, feeble tax-payers, continue to pay for it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve dined and drank with some of the brightest UC Berkeley economists (no thanks Stanford), and believe me, these guys and girls are not worth millions. Why do we, the computer scientists, the interaction designers, the hard-core innovaters, ultimately put up with the continued disparity in compensation?
Is it because we can shrug our shoulders and proclaim, “at least I love my job.”
Editor’s note: More bullshit to add to the pyre:
- Paul Krugman on the Madoff economy
-The AP on on how $1.6B go to bailed-out bank execs
The chain of problems I can see is that making risky loans requires capital, and most capital comes from investments, the biggest investors are the pension funds, and they get their money from us.
The problem is that a lot of the time your pension fund is recommended by your employer, and it’s too difficult to easily move money between them, plus with many pension funds being simple stock market trackers they all follow each other into the same bad investments.
If the market they worship was operating properly, competition would drive those sky high salaries right down. There’s the idea that commission and bonuses motivate people, but you know, the same applies to the people working on shop floors - it’s not the scale of the bonus, it’s the prospect of being able to double your salary.
The flipside of this is that we - the customers - would have to start paying a lot more attention. We’d need to shift banks, pensions, savings accounts, etc, more often, rather than credit cards.
(And that’s another thing - debt is a great way to hold on and exploit a customer)
Comment by JulesLt — December 18, 2008 @ 2:59 am
>Is it because we can shrug our shoulders and proclaim, “at least I love my job.”
Well, that’s precisely it. Good work is its own reward.
Comment by Manish Jethani — December 21, 2008 @ 2:40 pm