Those are mostly virtual dollars and he has a lot more real ones in his account, while I agree that whatever he does to "punish himself" will be practically meaningless it might have some symbolic meaning. Lowering his and senior management salaries and incentives won't save jobs but will give a better image of the crisis
And lowering the salaries of senior management doesn't make any sense. They're paid market rates. If you punitively cut their compensation in half or something, they'll just leave for another company that does pay market rate. You can't force them to stick around and be "punished", that's not how salaried employment in a market economy works.
Also, punishing management goes against the idea that he's taking all the responsibility here. Wouldn't that just be scapegoating?
That's a joke, a tax dodge, a PR gag, a farce. There's nothing fiscally responsible about it. Taking financial responsibility, if such a thing exists, would involve giving up his equity comp or even some of his holdings. Give it to the employees whose careers you've disrupted through your bad business decisions. That's responsibility.
"Market rates" is likewise a joke.
A: "Market rates for corporate executives are obscene."
B: "They're paid market rates, what's the problem?"
And their careers have been more disrupted than some random software engineer's career.
Also remember that since it's executives who set executive compensation, there is some incentive to inflate it.
(They can, of course, walk away if they disagree. But so can every other employee.)
Were they really? Did they just lose their jobs and are they now underwater on mortgages that their families can no longer afford without that income? How many executives lives were "disrupted" worse than that? Because I'm talking about a significant fraction of 11k people that you're dismissing as "some random software engineer."
Based on the latest proxy, he does not take any equity compensation. He only gets his $1 salary, a corporate private jet for business travel and $10M / year "to cover additional costs related to his and his family's personal security. This allowance is paid to Mr. Zuckerberg net of required tax withholdings, and Mr. Zuckerberg must apply the net amount towards additional personnel, equipment, services, residential improvements, or other security-related costs."
https://www.bamsec.com/filing/132680122000043/1?cik=1326801&...
The excerpt I quoted was written for a different purpose (namely to explain the $10M / year and whether the compensation committee deems it appropriate), so perhaps you feel that the language is somewhat vague as far as answering your question goes. I actually think it's pretty clear as it ends with
> "has requested to receive only $1 in annual salary and does not receive any bonus payments, equity awards, or other incentive compensation."
But earlier on in the document (https://www.bamsec.com/filing/132680122000043/1?cik=1326801&...), they do make the explicit assertion that you are looking for:
> "2021 Equity Awards. Mr. Zuckerberg did not receive any additional equity awards in 2021 because our compensation, nominating & governance committee believed that his existing equity ownership position sufficiently continued to align his interests with those of our shareholders."
Additionally, travel/security don't seem to have any hard spending limit and alleviates Zuck's personal tax liability. (by $27M anyway)
Per the filing you linked:
" Mr. Zuckerberg uses private aircraft for personal travel in connection with his overall security program (including, beginning in 2022, a private aircraft that is indirectly and wholly owned by Mr. Zuckerberg and operated by an independent charter company). On certain occasions, Mr. Zuckerberg may be accompanied by guests when using private aircraft. "
"the costs of Mr. Zuckerberg's security program vary from year to year depending on requisite security measures, his travel schedule, and other factors."
(Emphasis mine)
It was not socialist. It just called itself that.
There’s a Baptists and bootleggers coalition to pervert the meaning of socialism. Right wingers want to call everything to the left of Ronald Reagan socialism so they can paint it all as evil and a subset of people that are fairly bog standard welfare capitalists want to call themselves socialists because they think it sounds edgy and cool.
They are both wrong. Socialism involves collectivizing the means of production. Not a wealth tax. Not a greenhouse emissions rule. Not forcing companies to put women on their board. Not repealing at will employment. Collectivizing the means of production.
If you want to call for nationalizing Facebook then you are a socialist (and a fool.)
Or is this just a glib low effort put down?
When there are an estimated 7 to 9 million excess deaths recorded for the duration of the USSR, there's certainly going to be some survivorship bias with any polling.
The fall of the soviet system to capitalism was a mess, but it doesn't actually tell us anything about how people felt about communism vs capitalism. The statistic presented was in defense of socialism/communism. But, the transition from the soviet union to capitalist Russia was messy in its own right. Russia was looted by oligarchs taking advantage of the disarray.
All that being said, it looks like the poster was referencing this article, which is based on a survey conducted in 2009, long after the collapse of the soviet union...but one year into a worldwide recession. So I'm still not sure what conclusions one can really draw from that survey.
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2009/1223/Why-nearly-...
I no longer buy into either ideology as inherently good/bad anyways. At the end of the day, the powerful will exploit any system to their own benefit. I do believe that Communism is inherently dangerous, but only because it relies on an involuntary contract from everyone in the system to participate in a specific way. That contract violates the human impulse to act in their own short term rational interest. So you need to enforce rules, and that means establishing a more authoritarian governing body. Communism demands personal sacrifice of the accumulation of private wealth- and humans are naturally selfish. It just doesn't scale well.
Salvador Allende became President of Chile in 1970, he presided for 3 years before being taken down by a coup supported by the US government. In the time he was in power, he pushed a socialist program for Chile. Let's see some highlights of his "prisons, labor camps and starving", eh?
- nationalization of large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking)
- a programme of free milk for children in the schools and in the shanty towns
- payment of pensions and grants was resumed
- increased construction of residential buildings, averaging 55,000/year
- all part-time workers granted rights to social security, and increased payments
- proposed electricity price-increase withdrawn
- bread prices fixed
- 55,000 volunteers sent to the south to teach literacy, and provide medical care
- obligatory minimum wage for workers of all ages was established
- free milk introduced for expectant and nursing mothers and [young] children
- free school-meals established
- rent reductions
- construction of Santiago subway rescheduled to serve working-class neighbourhoods first.
- state-sponsored distribution of free food to neediest citizens.
- minimum taxable income-level was raised
- middle-class Chileans benefited from elimination of taxes on modest incomes and property.
- Exemptions from capital taxes were extended, benefitted 330,000 small proprietors.
- According to one estimate, purchasing power went up by 28% between October 1970 and July 1971.[53]
- The rate of inflation fell from 36.1% in 1970 to 22.1% in 1971
- Average real wages rose by 22.3% during 1971.
- Minimum real wages for blue-collar workers were increased by 56% during the first quarter of 1971 - real minimum wages for white-collar workers were increased by 23% - Although the acceleration of inflation in 1972 and 1973 eroded part of the initial increase in wages, they still rose (on average) in real terms during the 1971–73 period.
and, much more;
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende#Presidency
By contrast, the UK today has 27% of children living in poverty[1], and the UK government has voted against free school meals for children, and just tried to push through a tax cut for the rich, and electricity prices have gone up while energy companies are posting record profits, housing construction is down and prices are up so normal citizens are being priced out of the housing market.
[1] https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty-facts-and-fi...
He's lost literally 73% of his wealth over the past year and change (assuming it's all META ownership). That is a spectacular drop.
And the people getting laid off are getting very generous severance packages.
So I don't know what you're talking about. The market has punished him, and quite severely, for his missteps.
Is it worse to lose a billion dollars when you have two b, or a thousand dollars when all you have is 2k?
The marginal utility of money for power and influence in our societies seems to start a few orders of magnitude above the upper middle class, and so far doesn't seem to bend down very much as money increases.
It doesn't mean anything in terms of action or "self-punishment" but nor should it. The dude has already lost many more billions of dollars than you or I will ever see.
I'm no fan of the guy, but some people won't even take responsibility verbally. So at least he's not descending that low.
And the severance seems decent so it all seems to be handled fine. Not sure what more you're looking for.