I believe that executives should be paid.

I still believe that how they are paid needs to be reexamined. It has been demonstrated that there is a diminishing marginal utility to even money, among executives and politicians after a certain point paying them more can result in lower quality of work. In some Game Theory experiments this can be done with very simple tasks as well. Basically, I am worried that we are overpaying executives.

I do believe that some of our recent experiences with Green Energy in particular underscores this point. You have executives who land very large bonuses for bringing in huge amounts of government funding, and not really taking care of the meat of their business. These companies collapsed, well, spectacularly over the past six months or so. Similar companies who didn't get very large amounts of government funding and don't pay executives anywhere near as much are still operating. Why?

Well, I think it's a simple case of too much leading to problems. It's not really a case of greed when someone puts in a lot of work (albeit misguided work) and then gets paid a fraction of a percent, but rather one of a lack of strategic vision. Who keeps these things in line? The employees? They don't have any power. The shareholders? Not so long as they're betting on the outcome more than they are trying to contribute to the company. The government? So they can make a mess of his, too?

I do believe that this is a pretty significant flaw in the way our businesses operate at this time. Not a fatal flaw, mind you. I am just worried that a little problem, going beyond the efficiency wage (the notion that higher wages are more likely to attract higher quality labor) into the area of diseconomies of wage, is killing new and innovative industry for no good reason. This hurts everyone, even the executives who appear to benefit over the short run.

I just don't want a trend towards overpayment to kill of green energy and technology-oriented start ups like a handful of engineering mistakes killed off the air ships. It's taken almost a hundred years for investment to once again move into that technology, and some of it is bad ass as hell. I'm just, kinda sad when I think about how much we are missing out on because no one serious thought much about it for a hundred years.