Brink Lindsey: evaluation

Transcript context

…Are high levels of executive compensation also a part of the problem? And yes, I did ask Steve this too. I don’t know. I don’t think so. I can be convinced otherwise but I have not been convinced otherwise to date. It is possible that managers colluding with boards who are top managers who are on each other’s boards, there’s some kind of collusion going on, you scratch my back, I scratch yours, and that top managers pillage shareholders. It’s possible that could be the case. That seems to me to be damaging shareholders rather than the common good. I don’t see any evidence that American corporations are more poorly run than other corporations because they pay their executives too much. Likewise, if I look at privately held corporations versus publicly held corporations, the privately held seem to be paying similarly exorbitant sums to CEOs. To me, it looks like this is being driven by the enormous stakes that are in play. There’s a difference between the successful CEO and a failure of the CEO or it can be gigantic in terms of market valuation, nobody knows what’s gonna work and what’s not, but the stakes are big so it seems worth making a big bet on the right person. Is higher education part of the problem and if so, who should pay for it?…

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