Are you fucking kidding me?

Megan on CEO pay:

A lot of the invective against CEO pay is simply argument from incredulity: how could Michael Eisner possibly be worth $800 million in total compensation to his shareholders? Coming, as this almost always does, from someone who has spent little time watching CEOs work, this has always seemed slightly silly: how could you possibly have any idea whether he’s worth $800 million or not?

But Harford ably outlines an even more intriguing possibility: Michael Eisner might be worth $800 million even if he does nothing at all—indeed, perhaps he’d be worth even more if he did nothing but play video games all day.

That’s because many economists believe that CEO pay is structured as it is not to spur the CEO to ever greater heights of achievement, but rather pour encourager les autres. Michael Eisner might work just as hard for $1 million a year . . . but the gigantic payoff to becoming CEO spurs those beneath him to ever-greater heights of achievement. Basically, Michael Eisner has won the employment lottery. And because the prize is so big, all of his subordinates are dutifully beavering away, vying for a chance at the gravy train.

I.... don't think Megan is human. I think business school replaced her soul with an abacus, if, indeed, she had one to begin with. Only a business school grad could be blind to the fact her ilk would have a "tournament" over a moldy piece of week old bread if that's all that were available for them to compete over. It's about winning, and showing off the magnitude of your win. At the amounts of money in question it's hard to believe it's even greed that's at play, as opposed to sheer ego. Are bragging rights worth $800 million?
They better be, because her argument just gets worse.

Comparison of today’s American companies with the companies of the 1980s, or their current European counterparts, would seem to reveal that the tournament is an effective, if perhaps a little distasteful, structure. Americans are widely known for working harder than Europeans. Moreover, current American companies are not only far more productive than they used to be, but also enjoy significant productivity advantages over their foreign counterparts in critical but harder-to-measure areas like logistics and IT. When American companies take over companies abroad, suddenly their IT operation seems to improve dramatically. These differences may go a long way towards explaining the growth differentials between the two regions.

This is one of them countless occasions where Megan should SHOW PROOF OF WHAT SHE'S TALKING ABOUT, because it runs counter to the popular narrative that Europeans are actually more productive, despite a much more humane work week. Megan had a chance to create a learning moment, and whiffed. If she told me my name is Brad, I'd check my driver's license. You are not a reliable source, Megan, but you do reliably take positions that run counter to reality and, in a pure coincidence, tell big business types that their misdeeds aren't actually misdeeds. It's called enabling.
How's about a comparison of the quality of life between employees of American companies versus European? I know, I'm showing a card trick to a dog, asking Megan a question that doesn't involve profit. Anyone else out there read Aden, Arabie by Paul Nizan? Not a particularly well known text, but goddamn if Megan isn't a great example of Homo Economicus. Capital, profit, is quite literally her god.