My luck was accentuated by my living in a market system that sometimes produces distorted results, though overall it serves our country well. I've worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions. In short, fate's distribution of long straws is wildly capricious.The ultimate lucky winners of our current system are capital allocators. Those who can efficiently make decisions may be rewarded with vast riches. Unfortunately, doing what is efficient is not always doing what best serves our neighbor. After all, saving the lives of others and teaching future generations must certainly be at least as beneficial to society as being able to pick stocks... (if you doubt this, imagine a society without heroes/teachers and then another society without stockpickers... which would you rather live in?)
Aug 13, 2010
Buffett Giving Pledge - Capitalism & Distorted Results
Continuing from Speech by Warren Buffett on Charity...
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I'm a little unsure about this. Here's what I'm thinking...
ReplyDeleteWho's greater, the person who saves one life during their lifetime and does nothing else for the world or the person who saves 1/999 of a life (somehow) for one thousand people?
The idea here being that the capital allocators are facilitating a lot of small improvements in the directions of our economies. All the small micro improvements add up to thousands of better companies and perhaps millions of better jobs. This ends up providing millions of people with more opportunities, jobs, and perhaps longer lives (which can be considered saving lives since saving years is what we really mean by saving lives).
Another way to look at it is that average life spans increased as economies got better and not as people were more or less willing to save lives over the last 5000 years. If this is true, then better economies created by better capital allocators should have a more life saving impact than heroes and should be rewarded.
Do you agree?
Little disagreement with what you say...
ReplyDeleteCapital allocators certainly add to society (they're basically the opposite of inept politicans...), however they are clearly paid disproportionately to their contributions...
Capital allocators are grossly overrated (based on pay)... after all, which society (in the post) would u rather live in? Teachers or Capital Allocators?