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

Thu Mar 19 15:43:58 CET 2009

That's what I needed to know, more or less.

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

It may be necessary to take sides to be effective in the short term.

However, my own view is evolving toward this:

An optimum mix of light and heavy is better than light or heavy.

An optimum mix of open and closed is better than open or closed.

An optimum mix of free and paid is better than free or paid.

As to good and evil, they are subjective qualities so I would (personally)
say that an optimum mix of light and heavy, open and closed, free and paid
is good, not evil.

This is not to draw a direct comparison with someone who is far more
effective than myself but it's the ideal/idea that some of us evolve to
after working in black and white (for instant effect) for a long time.

I'm sure he would agree to take another look at his white beats black look
at the world.

To pick a side is to enforce scarcity in possibilities.

Marc

On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 7:17 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> 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
>>>
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>>>
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>>>
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>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> 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/
>
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