P-Mac V. Steininger

Gracious!

P-Mac doesn't like Steininger's essay.

It's almost impossible to cover the territory adequately in either of those essay length-restrictions--so Steininger has this:

The American workforce recognizes that any company is successful in large part because all the employees of that organization contribute to its success. To single out one class of individuals on the executive team and give credit primarily to them is instinctively recognized as wrong. Several years ago, The Wall Street Journal did an interview with the president of a Japanese automobile company who couldn't understand why a reporter wanted to interview him rather than the workers on the assembly line. Is it any wonder that those companies have surpassed American automobile companies in total sales and quality?

---which doesn't explain the current woes of GM or Chrysler very well at all...(hint: union rules and legacy benefits)

And P-Mac has this:

Wall Street doesn’t make things of value. Who does? Interestingly, he mentions George Dalton, who, via Fiserv, made a fortune catering exactly to the financial services sector. For that matter, Steininger made his living running an insurance company. Just saying.

A head-fake. FiServ developed (manufactured) systems which DO 'add value,' providing both instantly available micro-data AND macro-data for financial institutions. Has nothing whatsoever to do with Wall Street--except that some of them are customers.

What Steininger and P-Mac should agree upon is the simple principle that 'Work was made for man, not man for work,' voiced by John Paul II, and the very simple correct predicate of all value-exchange for labor. IOW, all humans have an intrinsic value which should be respected and should be fairly compensated.

The hard part, of course, is figuring out what that 'fair' compensation should really be.

In most cases, those CEO's give up a helluva lot for their success--ask their families. It's more than most of us will give up. Orders of magnitude more.

OK. Now ask those folks whether the yacht, twin Maybachs, and 6Br/5Ba in Great Neck was what they really, really, wanted from life.

And what will happen to all that stuff when they pass from this mortal coil...which is the real payoff question.