From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.4 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_50,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1014db,4873305131bf4d94 X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,4873305131bf4d94 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,4873305131bf4d94 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public From: Mark Wilden Subject: Re: Your english sucks, mine is better. Date: 1997/11/27 Message-ID: <347E4203.2A5E@mWilden.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 293309120 References: <34557f2b.1934172@news.mindspring.com> <347C92F0.152B@mWilden.com> <65k6jg$e6b$2@NNTP.MsState.Edu> <347DEBB2.5B6A@mWilden.com> <65lbe1$ond@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net> Organization: The Mark Wilden Company Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++ Date: 1997-11-27T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Craig Franck wrote: > > But it's not necessarily a zero-sum game. No, I carefully avoided using that term. :) However, there are _parts_ that are indeed zero-sum. Such a case is the distribution of profits. You're selling everything you can make, you've attracted and kept the best employees you can, your costs are as low as you can make them--now you've got a certain sum of money: the profit. Who gets it, the employees or the employers? Obviously, the employers (more accurately, the owners). > Profit margins can rise > fast enough to satisfy owner's desire for profits Are owners' desires for profits ever satisfied? :) My own desire for salary certainly isn't. > and, at the same > time, allow them to share the wealth with the employees. The _only_ reason they'd do that is to make sure they kept valuable employees. They'll pay the absolute minimum necessary to do this. To do otherwise would simply be philanthropy, and they'd probably go out of business. > This is > especially true when people are compensated with stock that later > goes through the roof. As a beneficiary of such compensation, I understand that very well. But where I made a paltry quarter of a million, the owners of the company made much more. > It is also true with bonus plans tied to > windfall profits. Some very talent intensive organizations consider > the signing and keeping of key people almost as an investment in > infrastructure. Absolutely. We're not talking slave labor, here. My point is simply that it's the employer's job to reduce costs, other things being equal. After a minimum point at which the employee is "satisfied," it's indeed zero-sum: the more the employee gets, the less the owner gets.