[p2p-research] AIG bonuses: the end of instant gratification?

[Michel Bauwens]

Hi Marc,

you could summarize that Umair Haque is an advocate of a new type of
'ethical capitalism', that would replace, 'making profit at any price' with
'doing well by doing good'. However one assesses that political vision, he
has a genial understanding of network logics and how they affect business.
Following his blog is more than worthwhile, and I often covered his work in
the p2p blog.

his motto, which opens ou business section in the wiki, states:


*

Light beats heavy. Open beats closed. Free beats paid. Good beats evil.

*


2009/3/19 marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com>

> I don't mean to change the subject (so you may ignore) but I'm looking at
> Umair's work in terms of the speed at which ideas lead to consequences...
>
> Umair wrote:
>
> "A few weeks ago, I posted the idea<http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/haque/2009/02/the_zombieconomy_1.html>of taxing bonuses at a 99.9 % marginal rate. It sounded absurd at the time.
> Now, it's reality. After House Democrats proposed doing so,"
>
> Did Congress pick up the idea from the Web? and specifically did Umair's
> post give birth to proposed legislation in a matter of weeks?
>
> If someone as well known and powerful as Bill Gates goes out and says
> something it does not become proposed legislation without a major lobbying
> effort. So what are the circumstances that allow an idea to have such swift
> consequence on reality?
>
> If there is actually a cause and effect link between Umair's post and the
> proposed legislation re: 99.9% tax on bonuses then is it a luck game or a
> matter of saying the right thing at the right time?
>
> My interest relates to understand how to bond ideas more closely (and
> effectively) to their consequence. I think that it's a combination of acute
> intuition about what to say and when to say it.
>
> As a footnote, I don't know what Umari's underlying principles, beliefs,
> assumptions are.  It would be nice in people's social profile for them to
> state their principles, beliefs, and assumptions, so communication and
> exchange between the messenger and the recipient can be more effective and
> specific.
>
> Marc
>
> p.s. travelling back to Seattle today, officially homeless (and lovin' it)
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 3:53 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> interesting view by umair haque:
>>
>> http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/haque/2009/03/crisis.html
>>
>> - we need disincentives, not incentives
>>
>> 2009/3/19 marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com>
>>
>>>
>>> I was watching this video<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/18/obama-on-aig-the-buck-sto_n_176423.html>of Obama talking about the AIG bonuses and I caught him saying that he
>>> wanted the bonuses to be based on performance, as if they are based on the
>>> lottery now.
>>>
>>> A worker's individual performance can only be estimated subjectively in
>>> terms of how it affects the company's performance, especially for large
>>> corporations where there are a great number of contributors to each gain or
>>> loss and a great degree of inter-dependency between the workers.
>>>
>>> A worker's performance metric is like a peer trust metric in that it is
>>> prone to being gamed/rigged both deliberately or inadvertently.  That is
>>> true of any subjective metric.
>>>
>>> The only thing in Obama's statement that makes sense (which he can be
>>> excused for not explaining in detail) is if we were to keep the bonuses and
>>> pay them only 5 years after the worker's exit (when the worker leaves the
>>> company) based on the average of the company's performance (measured  in the
>>> period of the worker's employment + 5 years. For example, those who left AIG
>>> prior to mid 2003 the bonuses would have much higher bonuses than those who
>>> are leaving AIG now or who will leave it in the future (due to the abysmal
>>> effect of the 2008 collapse on the company average performance.) It's not a
>>> perfect solution but if that's what Obama meant when he said that it's not
>>> fair that "people make $6M bonuses when things are good and then get bailed
>>> out by taxpayers when things are bad" then I think it could lead to a more
>>> fair system.
>>>
>>> Marc
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> p2presearch mailing list
>>> p2presearch at listcultures.org
>>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
>> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>> Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
>> http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
>> http://p2pfoundation.ning.com
>>
>> Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
>>
>> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
>> http://www.shiftn.com/
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> p2presearch mailing list
> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>
>


-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com

Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20090319/c93de1d8/attachment.html>