I'd likely be progressive if American progressivism wasn't so economically illiterate (as opposed to say Piketty). The vindictive themes make me think that it's motivated more by envy than a genuine desire to improve society.
The CEO to worker compensation ratio is a useless metric. There is absolutely no reason why Starbucks should be punished for hiring more workers over a company like Nvidia that hires relatively few very well paid workers. If you want raise taxes, just increase taxes across the board.
If you really think that stock buybacks are meant to "pump up short term share prices", you should test your theory in the market and you'll be a billionaire in no time.
>if American progressivism wasn't so economically illiterate
Economists by and large tend to be academically and principally in support of many progressive positions so I'm not sure your statement can be read any other way than "I don't like perspectives that disagree with my primed and preconceived beliefs"
Which is an exceedingly common phenomena in a post-truth world. But it's quite obvious; just want to point that out to you.
For decades, professional American economists vote for the democratic party at a rate greatly exceeding the general population and profess support for ideological progressive positions that is also at a notable rate higher than the general population.
You know, there's also something to say about how people invoke the term "economics" in their own personal posts as some sort of grandstanding dog-whistle but we'd be here for hours.
You assume that I'm conservative, but I'm not. I'm a Democrat who is growing increasingly concerned about their voting base demanding populism. AOC, Sanders, Warren are progressives. I don't consider establishment Democrats progressive.
I didn't say that. I responded directly to your own statement about not being a progressive and the fact that progressives are generally, implied by your words, economic illiterate.
Those were your words, not mine.
Whether you are a Democrat or any other party member is kind of irrelevant; although it certainly is amusing.
You made a lot of loaded assumptions, the most objectively wrong one being that I was conservative. "I'd likely be progressive if American progressivism wasn't so economically illiterate (as opposed to say Piketty)" means that I share similar values as progressives, but think that all of them in my home country are a joke.
> I'm not sure your statement can be read any other way than "I don't like perspectives that disagree with my primed and preconceived beliefs"
You could have read the second half of the comment which explains why I think progressives are economically illiterate and an example of a non economically illiterate policy.
> For decades, professional American economists vote for the democratic party at a rate greatly exceeding the general population
This assumes that I'm not Democrat. Maybe it's partially at fault for not being clear about what progressive means, but again the rest of the comment would not sense with this assumption.
> there's also something to say about how people invoke the term "economics" in their own personal posts as some sort of grandstanding dog-whistle
It’s a metric capturing income inequality. Very relevant to those of us who care about income inequality. There are plenty of reasons to want to limit income inequality.
My point is that it is a useless metric about income inequality. Starbucks can restructure to a franchise model and immediately reduce worker-CEO pay. Like I said, any other form of taxation would be a less economically distortionary way to reduce income inequality.
You're conflating managerial economics with macroeconomics. CEOs at publicly traded companies aren't hired to enhance the long-term productive capacity of the firm ("growing the economy"); they're there to calm investor nerves and make the stock sexy. Those only have a very slight correlation to the overall health of the economy. Microsoft grew revenue and profits under Steve Ballmer, but the stock stayed flat, so he had to go.
It'd be great if public companies could grow market share by beating competitors by with better prices or service, but that takes long-term strategic planning and no surprises from government, activist investors, suppliers and employees. CEOs don't have that kind of time, so they reach for familiar tools: restructuring (mass firings), selling off parts, and yes, share buybacks, because these tools move the needle that matters. During their quarterly earnings calls, they answer to Wall Street analysts, who represent the interests of shareholders, not employees or economic policymakers.
As for "economic illiteracy", the very concept is nonsensical. Every economy is structured differently and what's "sensible" changes over time. If you asked a US economist whether they thought zero interest rate policy (2008-2022) was a good idea, they'd think you were talking about a communist society with a desperate government trying to manufacture growth. But this is how every western economy largely operated after the Great Recession. They'd probably take a dim view of venture capital as well, considering its portfolio strategy ignores operational profit targets in favor of IPO windfalls. That's how you end up with abominations like SPACs, where companies can go public with a fraction of the financial transparency that would otherwise be required.
> If you asked a US economist whether they thought zero interest rate policy (2008-2022) was a good idea, they'd think you were talking about a communist society with a desperate government trying to manufacture growth.
I think you missed some words. Did you mean economists from the Cold War? By economic illiteracy, I don't mean economic opinions I think are stupid, but refusal to acknowledge economics altogether. If Milton Friedman rises from the dead, he could read the Fed's rationale for keeping interest rates low. He may vehemently disagree, but he would at least acknowledge there is an argument to be made.
On the other hand, there has been no thought whatsoever put into the implications of a tax that specifically targets companies with a exec to worker pay gap. There is no economic argument for why stock buybacks are bad for workers. There are arguments for why they're bad for investors, but somehow I doubt that the authors of the article are worried about those people.
The CEO to worker compensation ratio is a useless metric. There is absolutely no reason why Starbucks should be punished for hiring more workers over a company like Nvidia that hires relatively few very well paid workers. If you want raise taxes, just increase taxes across the board.
If you really think that stock buybacks are meant to "pump up short term share prices", you should test your theory in the market and you'll be a billionaire in no time.