GTA 6 publisher Take-Two reportedly shutting Roll7 and Intercept Games

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Mountain ManPeople who assume that if CEOs were paid less, then the workers could be paid more, have a rather simplistic and naive understanding of how business and the economy works.

And yet, going by history it seems to work out in practice. Look at places and times where the CEOs are paid less, and you find workers who are more prosperous and have better working conditions.

Perhaps, but there's no hard and fast rule that says better paid employees are necessarily more profitable employees. If raises were guaranteed to increase profits, then every company would do it, but it's rarely as simple as that, and the harsh reality is that sometimes layoffs are necessary to keep a business solvent.

Quoting: PublicNuisance

Quoting: Caldathras

QuoteIt's worth noting at this point that Take-Two's CEO, Strauss Zelnick, was paid $42.1 million last year, which is more than two-and-a-half times the previous year. So once again, the people at the top are pulling in big numbers while cutting the people doing the work.

This needs to be pointed out more often. No one deserves this high a salary, especially at the expense of those that earn much less. Plain greed.

What's the correct number for them to make ? How do you arrive at that number ? Who gets to decide ? I'm not trying to defend Take Two but at the same time trying to dictate how much people are allowed to make is a recipe for a different form of tyranny.

Well, in the end that would be the commoners (i.e., the working class) - much to the terror of the elite classes. Does the French Revolution or Russia's February Revolution ring a bell?

As to your other thoughts, I defer to the answers from others.

Quoting: Caldathras

Quoting: PublicNuisance

Quoting: Caldathras

QuoteIt's worth noting at this point that Take-Two's CEO, Strauss Zelnick, was paid $42.1 million last year, which is more than two-and-a-half times the previous year. So once again, the people at the top are pulling in big numbers while cutting the people doing the work.

This needs to be pointed out more often. No one deserves this high a salary, especially at the expense of those that earn much less. Plain greed.

What's the correct number for them to make ? How do you arrive at that number ? Who gets to decide ? I'm not trying to defend Take Two but at the same time trying to dictate how much people are allowed to make is a recipe for a different form of tyranny.

Well, in the end that would be the commoners (i.e., the working class) - much to the terror of the elite classes. Does the French Revolution or Russia's February Revolution ring a bell?

As to your other thoughts, I defer to the answers from others.

I am part of the working class. I work six day weeks, 48 hours a week, to just get by. That means I get to decide ? So I could say that there should be no ceiling for earnings and torpedo your whole plan ? Can I also decide how much you get to earn ? You may not like my thoughts on that number right now.

You failed to answer me how much this man should earn or how you arrived at the number. There is no right number and that's why. The whole argument is just to hate the "rich". You say that this is for the terror of the elites but it should terrify anyone at allowing anybody to make law how much another person can earn. It would never end at the "elites" and would end up affecting the very people you claim to want to help anyway.

Quoting: Mountain Manand the harsh reality is that sometimes layoffs are necessary to keep a business solvent.

But it doesn't look good when the CEO (or his Board) gives himself a $20 million raise/bonus at the same time. Instead, it looks like the CEO is terminating employees simply to justify padding his own pockets. This leads one to question his ethics.

Quoting: PublicNuisance

Quoting: Caldathras

Quoting: PublicNuisance

Quoting: Caldathras

QuoteIt's worth noting at this point that Take-Two's CEO, Strauss Zelnick, was paid $42.1 million last year, which is more than two-and-a-half times the previous year. So once again, the people at the top are pulling in big numbers while cutting the people doing the work.

This needs to be pointed out more often. No one deserves this high a salary, especially at the expense of those that earn much less. Plain greed.

What's the correct number for them to make ? How do you arrive at that number ? Who gets to decide ? I'm not trying to defend Take Two but at the same time trying to dictate how much people are allowed to make is a recipe for a different form of tyranny.

Well, in the end that would be the commoners (i.e., the working class) - much to the terror of the elite classes. Does the French Revolution or Russia's February Revolution ring a bell?

As to your other thoughts, I defer to the answers from others.

I am part of the working class. I work six day weeks, 48 hours a week, to just get by. That means I get to decide ? So I could say that there should be no ceiling for earnings and torpedo your whole plan ? Can I also decide how much you get to earn ? You may not like my thoughts on that number right now.

You failed to answer me how much this man should earn or how you arrived at the number. There is no right number and that's why. The whole argument is just to hate the "rich". You say that this is for the terror of the elites but it should terrify anyone at allowing anybody to make law how much another person can earn. It would never end at the "elites" and would end up affecting the very people you claim to want to help anyway.

So am I. I've already capped my own earnings, thanks.

I've made no claims of wanting to help anyone. At what point did I suggest anything about a law? This is a matter of ethics not legality. Is there a "right" number? I have no idea. But compensation at the level of $42 million is just pure greed. No CEO contributes enough to a company to deserve that, period. Before the eighties, this was understood. Now everything is just pure greed.

Oh, and yes, as a member of the common folk, you do get to decide. Collectively or individually. You've just presumably chosen not to exercise that option and decided to live within the system provided to you by the elite.

Quoting: PublicNuisanceallowing anybody to make law how much another person can earn.

FYI, most Western governments already do this. Are you not familiar with minimum wage legislation?


Last edited by Caldathras on 3 May 2024 at 9:40 pm UTC

Quoting: PublicNuisanceYou failed to answer me how much this man should earn or how you arrived at the number. There is no right number and that's why. The whole argument is just to hate the "rich". You say that this is for the terror of the elites but it should terrify anyone at allowing anybody to make law how much another person can earn. It would never end at the "elites" and would end up affecting the very people you claim to want to help anyway.

There is absolutely no good reason why we can NOT regulate excessive salaries. Free markets never produce 100% desirable results in all situations. Even free-market advocates don't deny that. Which is why in economics, it's considered to be just fine to correct market failures with regulation and/or taxation. And as I pointed out above, it's borderline insane to claim that these CEO salaries are somehow NOT a market failure.

As for who, how and when to regulate? That's the parliaments job, don't you think? They do that all the time, and the numbers aren't always hard science. Like the numbers they set tax exemptions and grants to this exact amount, despite it also could have been 1000 dollars more or less.

Whenever this topic is discussed, people go "Regulation? Dictatorship!!!!". It's so funny, because similar to CEOs, thieves also grab stuff and run away with it, because they can. And yet we made regulations against it...

Quoting: Caldathras

Quoting: Mountain Manand the harsh reality is that sometimes layoffs are necessary to keep a business solvent.

But it doesn't look good when the CEO (or his Board) gives himself a $20 million raise/bonus at the same time. Instead, it looks like the CEO is terminating employees simply to justify padding his own pockets. This leads one to question his ethics.

I don't suppose there are many CEOs who care how some people might interpret it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Mountain ManPeople who assume that if CEOs were paid less, then the workers could be paid more, have a rather simplistic and naive understanding of how business and the economy works.

And yet, going by history it seems to work out in practice. Look at places and times where the CEOs are paid less, and you find workers who are more prosperous and have better working conditions.

Perhaps, but there's no hard and fast rule that says better paid employees are necessarily more profitable employees. If raises were guaranteed to increase profits, then every company would do it, but it's rarely as simple as that, and the harsh reality is that sometimes layoffs are necessary to keep a business solvent.

I think I'd want to claim that when times are tough enough that layoffs are necessary to keep the business solvent, the CEO should not be increasing his pay by more than the money the layoffs save. Really, how hard is this?

And that's before you even get to the part where the people laid off were not just costing wages, they were presumably making the business money, whereas a raise to the same CEO, as a reward for business failure so far, is unlikely to cause more money to exist in any way. So if you lay people off, you may have a net gain if it was a money-losing area, but it will be smaller than the money saved on salary unless the idea of hiring them in the first place was an example of lunatic incompetence in the first place. So the CEO raise, which is pure loss, isn't just several times as large as the savings, it overwhelms them to a ridiculous degree.

But I guess it's justified because the CEO, from his yacht, makes the tough decisions and takes risks--what if his decisions led to the company going under and he had to make do for a while on just those 26 million smackers? Oh, the humanity!--while ordinary employees laid off face no risks at all . . .


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 3 May 2024 at 10:12 pm UTC

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Mountain ManPeople who assume that if CEOs were paid less, then the workers could be paid more, have a rather simplistic and naive understanding of how business and the economy works.

And yet, going by history it seems to work out in practice. Look at places and times where the CEOs are paid less, and you find workers who are more prosperous and have better working conditions.

Perhaps, but there's no hard and fast rule that says better paid employees are necessarily more profitable employees. If raises were guaranteed to increase profits, then every company would do it, but it's rarely as simple as that, and the harsh reality is that sometimes layoffs are necessary to keep a business solvent.

I think I'd want to claim that when times are tough enough that layoffs are necessary to keep the business solvent, the CEO should not be increasing his pay by more than the money the layoffs save. Really, how hard is this?

And that's before you even get to the part where the people laid off were not just costing wages, they were presumably making the business money, whereas a raise to the same CEO, as a reward for business failure so far, is unlikely to cause more money to exist in any way. So if you lay people off, you may have a net gain if it was a money-losing area, but it will be smaller than the money saved on salary unless the idea of hiring them in the first place was an example of lunatic incompetence in the first place. So the CEO raise, which is pure loss, isn't just several times as large as the savings, it overwhelms them to a ridiculous degree.

But I guess it's justified because the CEO, from his yacht, makes the tough decisions and takes risks--what if his decisions led to the company going under and he had to make do for a while on just those 26 million smackers? Oh, the humanity!--while ordinary employees laid off face no risks at all . . .

Look, you can vilify the CEO all you want and pretend that running a multi-million dollar company is done from a yacht while casually sipping martinis instead of being hard work that requires decades of business experience, but the fact is, giving himself a raise isn't what led to the employees being laid off, and if keeping the employees was likely to turn a profit for the company, then they would still have a job. I've been on the receiving end of layoffs before, and yes, it sucks to lose your source of income, but I also recognize that businesses aren't charities, they exist to make money, and if they're losing money keeping certain people on the payroll, then good business says it's time to let them go. Like I said, if increasing profits was as easy as handing out raises like candy, then everybody would be doing it.


Last edited by Mountain Man on 3 May 2024 at 11:18 pm UTC

Quoting: Purple Library GuyI think I'd want to claim that when times are tough enough that layoffs are necessary to keep the business solvent, the CEO should not be increasing his pay by more than the money the layoffs save. Really, how hard is this?

The above quote is right on the money (see what I did there).

Cutting jobs that result in spending a few hundred thousand money units less, then giving yourself exponentially MORE cash does NOT help. Were the job cuts supposed to result in saving the company or reduce spending? Did he save the company money? NO, he just lined his pocket with MORE than he 'saved' the company. However;

Businesses exist to make money, not be charities (unless it actually IS a chrarity). The CEO can give himself as much of the companies' money as he can get his grubby hands on; people are in it to make money, that's fine. I do not agree there should be income limits, because, as mentioned, it is just a hop skip and a jump from a different kind of tyranny. I am partial to calling this kind of action Employment Abuse or Financial Abuse or perhaps some better terms someone else can suggest, and having a regulation from a similar department to where anti-trust or other business overwatch originates from.

Quoting: KimyrielleThere is absolutely no good reason why we can NOT regulate excessive salaries.

There is a saying that goes something like "we were so busy finding out if we COULD, that we didn't ask ourselves if we SHOULD". Excessive salaries, by itself, isn't the problem. "saving" the company money, then pocketting multitudes more than the lost jobs would ever cost the company is where many like-minded people like myself take umbrage.