Thread by @swardley

X : Do you know how much a global CIO at a bank makes?
Me : No idea. It's not something I look into.
X : Have a guess.
Me : Hmmm ... moderately low risk job, moderate stress, moderate tech, wealthy industry ... gosh ... about $400 - $600 k per year?
X : Try $5M
Me : (gasp)

X : You've gone silent.
Me : Well, that just doesn't make any sense at all. That seems very distorted.
X : You have to pay big bucks to ...
Me : ... get talent? That is such a lot of nonsense, usually used in reverse by people lacking any actual talent bar hoodwinking others.

X : What would you do with a $5M salary?
Me : I'd live a life of luxury and excess and still give away $4.5M in charitable donations per year. You're talking amounts of money that ... well ... our system is broken.

... the US president salary is $400k. Given that role, a reasonable cap on renumeration of $500k plus a total wealth cap of $50M seems reasonable (100 years at that rate). Anything beyond that just seems excessive and should be legislated against.

X : That would inhibit competition and investment.
Me : Go take a walk and meet ordinary people. Such a cap wouldn't inhibit competition, in fact any new capital flows would likely accelerate the market. Excessive wealth accumulation is not a feature of the market, it's a bug.

X : But if I've made $50M then what's my reason to make more if it's just taken away.
Me : Your desire to make more if it's just contributed back to society? Reciprocity? Fairness? Contribution to greater good? But mostly why does it matter, there are billions of people who will.

X : Wouldn't such limits simply restrict talent?
Me : I would expect such limits to release more talent than it restricts. Redistribution & investment should enable opportunity rather than inhibits it especially as most wealth generation is function of privilege and luck ...

... unless you have one of those distorted beliefs on the "idle poor".

"When poor Tweedledum is rich Tweedledee, This discrimination will no longer be"
- stlyrics.com/lyrics/finians…

X : Bit shocked at your surprise on the compensation.

Me : I didn't expect the size of the figures. I worked in investment and private client banking, I never found it stressful. So, in comparison to running a nuclear power plant, being a nurse or a teacher ... it seems off.

However, I did come across a lot of abusive personalities. This included a far amount of politics and backstabbing.

So, I can imagine the role could be stressful in some organisations especially with continual demands and no clear direction but not enough to justify.

X : Ayn Rand would be very upset with your tweets.
Me : "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy. The other, of course, involves orcs."

X : Billionaires would lose most of their wealth?
Me : Nisha Agarwal said a "billionaire boom is not the sign of a thriving economy but the symptom of a failing economic system". Gross inequality is a bug not a feature. We shouldn't be celebrating wealth. We should be fixing it.

X : I'm stealing your Ayn Rand quote.
Me : It's not my quote, hence the quotation marks. I believe the quote belongs to John Rogers - goodreads.com/quotes/366635-…