News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Do the Rich Capture All the Gains from Economic Growth? by weberc2 on Thursday October 25, 2018 @03:57PM (#18304065)
I think you misunderstand investment. Enterprises are risky; someone has to lose money when they fail or otherwise lose value. Those people are investors. Employees can also be investors (e.g., employee owned companies or other arrangements in which employees buy stock in their companies). By definition, the people who get returns on investment are the investors. Buying risk (aka investment) is inherently valuable.

If you think employees should get returns on investment, then you're necessarily advocating for forcing them to take home less money and risking the difference on the performance of their company.

The good news is that many employees do invest in their own company or in other companies, and they're free to choose their investments such that they can tune the knobs of 'amount' and 'risk' to suit their personal goals.

Re:Do the Rich Capture All the Gains from Economic Growth? by eiaoa on Thursday October 25, 2018 @04:36PM (#18304372)
> I think you misunderstand investment.

I understand investment, I'm just telling you that your original statement is wrong. If you're an owner, you don't have to create any value to get paid. Mere ownership gets owners paid. Sure, they can actively invest if they want to, and they may be better off for it, but that kind of activity is strictly optional.

Re:Do the Rich Capture All the Gains from Economic Growth? by weberc2 on Thursday October 25, 2018 @05:16PM (#18304652)
> I understand investment

I'm ... not sure you do...

> If you're an owner, you don't have to create any value to get paid. Mere ownership gets owners paid. Sure, they can actively invest if they want to, and they may be better off for it, but that kind of activity is strictly optional.

This isn't true. Owners are investors by definition; owners are the sole investors in their companies. Like all investors, owners don't "get paid" unless they sell their shares at a higher price than they bought them. I'm not sure if you take issue with those definitions or if you're trying to nit-pick what it means to 'create value', but I'm pretty sure I've simplified this as much as I can. Good luck.