More on the Myth of Outsourcing’s Efficiency
Why outsourcing winds up producing cost creep over time.
Read more...Category Archives: CEO compensation
RJ Eskow: The 5 Worst Things About the Techno-Libertarians Solidifying Their Grasp on Our Economy and Culture
Some of the Valley’s billionaires are using their publicly-assisted wealth to back far-right politics under a “libertarian” label.
Read more...Bill Black: Criminal Tax Evader HSBC’s CEO Resorts to Bank Apologist Fable of the Virgin Crisis
Bill Black shreds HSBC’s efforts to use the “I’m the CEO and I know nothing” defense for its helping clients cheat on taxes on a mass scale.
Read more...Slimin’ Jamie Dimon Tells Howlers About Persecution of Banks, “Fortress Balance Sheet”
Jamie Dimon seems to think if he can tell his Big Lies long enough, he’ll be believed. In reality, the only ones who will buy his blather are his fellow members of the elite banker looting classes and their hired help.
Dimon’s latest opportunity to play Ministry of Truth came in an analysts’ call last week, when he tried presenting JP Morgan and banks generally as “under assault”. This was so patently ridiculous that it quickly elicited the scorn it deserved.
Read more...Media Giving Corporate Executives a Free Pass on Their Value Extraction
Executive rentiers and their media lackeys are invoking the canard that they can’t find decent investment opportunities. The truth is that they’ve exhausted the first and second lines of value extraction, that of labor-squeezing and disinvestment, and aren’t prepared to accept the lower but still attractive returns of taking real economy risks.
Read more...Finance Sector Wages: Explaining Their High Level and Growth
Individuals who work in the finance sector enjoy a significant wage advantage. This column considers three explanations: rent sharing, skill intensity, and task-biased technological change. The UK evidence suggests that rent sharing is the key. The rising premium could then be due to changes in regulation and the increasing complexity of financial products creating more asymmetric information.
Read more...US Corporate Executives to Workers: Drop Dead
The Washington Post has a story that blandly supports the continued strip mining of the American economy. Of course, in Versailles that the nation’s capitol has become, this lobbyist-and-big-ticket-political-donor supporting point of view no doubt seems entirely logical. The guts of the article: Three years ago, Harvard Business School asked thousands of its graduates, many […]
Read more...Bill Black: How Hayek Helped the Worst Get to the Top in Economics and as CEOs
Libertarians are profoundly anti-democratic. The folks at Cato that I debate make no bones about their disdain for and fear of democracy. Friedrich von Hayek is so popular among libertarians because of his denial of the legitimacy of democratic government and his claims that it is inherently monstrous and murderous to its own citizens.
Read more...David Cay Johnston on the Perils of Our Growing Inequality
David Cay Johnston is a clear and lively conversationalist, and I anticipate readers will enjoy his discussion of his work over the last 20 years on inequality.
Read more...Rhode Island Senate Considering “Maximum Wage” Legislation
Why Rhode Island’s maximum wage proposal is a potential big step toward reducing income inequality.
Read more...How Milton Friedman Fomented the Barmy “Corporations Exist to Maximize Shareholder Value” Myth
One of my pet peeves is the degree to which the notion that corporations exist only to serve the interests of shareholders is accepted as dogma and recited uncritically by the business press
Read more...Delaware Chief Justice to Shareholders: Drop Dead
We’ve argued that the notion that companies are obligated to maximize shareholder value is a theory made up by economists and eagerly adopted by corporate executives, with little to no foundation in law. We received confirmation of our thesis in the form of a Columbia Law Review article by the chief justice in Delaware, Leo Strine, arguing that shareholder activism needs to be curbed. As if CEOs are really breaking a sweat over those pesky shareholders.
Read more...These Charts Show What is Wrong With American Capitalism
For the last 30 years, neoliberals have fixated on a simple program: “Get government out of the way,” which meant reduce taxes and regulations. Business will invest more, which will produce a higher growth rate and greater prosperity for all. The belief was that unfettered capitalism could solve all ills.
That’s not how this children’s story is turning out.
Read more...Why So Little Media Coverage of How the Rich Are Becoming Richer and the Middle Class Wages are Being Squeezed?
Ryan Grim and Mark Gongloff of Huffington Post described one of the key mechanisms by which CEO pay has risen to stratospheric levels: cronyism and backscratching among board members, many of whom are also CEOs. And that’s not the only one that gets less attention than is warranted.
Read more...Versailles Watch: John Mack Whines About How Badly Wall Street CEOs are Treated
You cannot make this stuff up.
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