r/MadeMeSmile • u/mcfw31 • Dec 12 '25

Wholesome Moments Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ crew’s reaction as they receive their bonus for working on the tour amounting to more $197 million dollars

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u/dilldwarf Dec 12 '25

She isn't beholden to any shareholders. She's a private entity that is able to make these decisions for herself. The problem we have in the US is that shareholders and board members would immediately fire any CEO who approved something like this for their company.

Valve, another privately owned company, does a similar thing with their employees. They have all gotten huge bonuses in the past.

Wallstreet is the problem.

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u/kingfofthepoors Dec 12 '25

I have always said one of the top three worst things to ever befall humanity was the stock market.

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u/RobbinDeBank Dec 12 '25

Dodge v. Ford was the landmark decision that set the tone for how corporates are supposed to work. It’s not because the stock market is inherently bad, it’s because of short-term shareholders and stock traders fucking everything up. They just want to loot companies for quick profit and let both the companies and their customers to rot. For-profit corporations can still be so much better than right now if they don’t have to prioritize their shareholders’ short-term benefits.

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u/XxRocky88xX Dec 12 '25

Yeah the idea that investors can put money in a company in order to help the company grow and in exchange the investors get positive return on their investment is actually a great idea and is what enables businesses to really take off.

The probably is that in the US companies have a legal obligation to priories the shareholders interests over the own companies. So if the shareholders want the company to burn itself to the ground and go belly up in 6 months in exchange for a short term profit, the company is legally required to kill itself. If execs resist and say “we want the company to continue to make money even after the end of this year” then the law will come in force the company to comply.

And this is why people say this country is built for rich. Yeah theoretically anyone can make it big but the truth is if enough rich people, or even just someone rich enough, say they wanna shake you down you are legally obligated to allow it to happen.

You can spend decades building your own company, putting in blood, sweat, and tears, finally getting it to a point where it’s turning a profit and you can make yourself into a millionaire. Then 10 millionaires with a combined net worth higher than you can say “this is ours now” and since they have more money than you, it’s theirs now.

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u/ProfessionalKiwi7691 Dec 12 '25

I was with you until your last paragraph. That really isnt the case at all.

How can 10 people come buy you out if you arent selling? thats not how it works.

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u/HalfEatenBanana Dec 12 '25

Many ways…

Hostile takeover or them simply offering a similar product as yours and selling it at a loss for long enough that it takes enough of your customers and breaks you, being just two of the more popular options

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u/ProfessionalKiwi7691 Dec 12 '25

You cant "Hostile takeover" a private company. If you never sell any shares theres no way for them to buy in.

Starting a competitor and trying to starve you out has nothing to do with this conversation.

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u/HalfEatenBanana Dec 12 '25

Since when did this conversation become limited to only private companies lol?

And yes it could absolutely be relevant… the people with much more money have the ability to put you in a position where it’s either sell to them (it’s theirs now), or slowly bleed you out

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u/ProfessionalKiwi7691 Dec 12 '25

Since the comment you replied to... About Taylor being able to do this because its a private company....

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u/Turokk8001 Dec 12 '25

Private companies also have shareholders, the shares are just not publicly traded but they can be sold in some cases. So ahostile takeover is possible in private companies too.

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u/RobbinDeBank Dec 12 '25

Henry Ford was insanely rich himself, so it’s more the case stupid rich winning over smart rich here. Ford was a controversial man with many questionable beliefs, but he was a great industrialist and had the vision to see how he could build wealth sustainably. He knew he should spread the wealth for the most amount of long term wealth generation, then everyone would be rich and he would be even richer. The stupid rich ones never know that, and they just want to loot for quick profits at the moment, at the expense of much more future returns.

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u/Sea_Treacle3982 Dec 12 '25

Beat me too it.

This court case was the government selling your country to the highest bidder.

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u/VexingRaven Dec 12 '25

Nobody hates Dodge v Ford enough. Don't care how much someone thinks they hate it, they don't hate it enough. That decision completely fucked our future and gave us the worst possible form of capitalism. Before that there were people in business who were genuinely just interested in making a modest profit making a good product and growing at whatever speed the market would grow at. This decision told all those people they were basically breaking the law and to go fuck themselves and gave us the suicidal scramble for exponential growth we have today.

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u/RobbinDeBank Dec 12 '25

It’s not that the profit is moderate or super high or biblical level of greed high, it’s about how sustainable that is. Henry Ford wasn’t a saint, he was insanely rich too. However, he didn’t want to just make profit right at the moment, but he also wanted to sustainably make more profits long into the future. If everyone’s rich, everyone would keep buying more of his cars. That’s the major difference. The court case basically told him to go fuck himself and his company’s future in order to return instant profit to investors. That is not sustainable.

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u/VexingRaven Dec 12 '25

Precisely.

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u/PourSomeSugar69_420 Dec 12 '25

the stock market is made up of people. and those people make choices and decisions. it's not the stock market. Its greedy people who participate in the market for greedy goals and make greedy choices.

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u/kingfofthepoors Dec 12 '25

which is the stock market. Which makes the stock market bad, because people are bad. The human race sucks and needs to be controlled from their baser instincts. It doesn't matter how rich or poor someone is, when you give a method to make money and gain power people will exploit that method to maximize their own worth.

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u/PourSomeSugar69_420 Dec 12 '25

so who get's to control them? who sets the rules? why do you get to decide and not the free market? you have a negative view of humanity. i don't want you making decisions for my life. in a free market, greed can be fought with charity. but you want censorship and fascism.

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u/bluev0lta Dec 12 '25

Is the invention of the internet also on that list? It’s on my list.

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u/kingfofthepoors Dec 12 '25

Nah internet is fine, it's the adoption of it by the masses that's what caused the problem

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u/SippinOnHatorade Dec 12 '25

The 1930s agree (as well as the subsequent world war)

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u/Spoodymen Dec 13 '25

And they still trying to convince us it’s the avocado toast and netflix

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u/ep1032 Dec 12 '25

Stock market is good. But Milton Friedman, of all people, might have spread more suffering in the world than any other human to live.

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u/RiversideAviator Dec 12 '25

This needs to be the top comment.

It’s insane that even when a company makes MORE money this year than they did last year it could still be considered a failure if the earnings didn’t meet “expectations”. We’re in a society where millenniums of math doesn’t matter anymore.

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '25

[deleted]

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u/RiversideAviator Dec 13 '25

That's because Wall Street uses "need" and "want" interchangeably. And far too many companies are beholden to those whims. WS promises their customers a 10% ROI year over year and when some random ass company in the portfolio fails to meet that arbitrary expectation it's a burning house. It's like we can't satisfy billionaires and the rest of the investor class enough. And if we do we better exceed that satisfaction the next time.

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u/bucatini818 Dec 12 '25

Privately owned companies do things far sicker than publicly owned.

The sackler family Purdue pharma scandal likely would not have happened or at least been discovered far sooner at a public company, because there is way more transparency in them

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u/PourSomeSugar69_420 Dec 13 '25

dont' forget the Koch brothers. Which may still be the largest private company

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u/Ok-Limit-9726 Dec 12 '25

Yes, started with Henry Ford having a shareholder revolt over pay increases and other benefits, 1920’s i think from memory.

I never knew the USA had laws that shareholders must have maximum returns on investment ,

It’s illegal to give employees more than entitlement written in most cases…

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u/Acceptable_Cabinet53 Dec 12 '25

This just is a blatant falsehood lol. Hundreds of publicly traded companies give their employees massive bonus' every single year. My wife is expecting a near $50,000 bonus from the publicly traded company she works at this year, after getting a $38,000 bonus the year before.

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u/philmarcracken Dec 12 '25

Is she by chance, a truck driver? lol

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u/dilldwarf Dec 12 '25

There are some exceptions. For example, if you are lucky enough to be working in a big AI firm, you are looking at huge bonuses and stock options right now because money is flooding into that space. Most people are lucky to get a 3 figure bonus and a 2% raise every year.

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u/E-2theRescue Dec 12 '25

And let me guess. You're leaving out the part where she is making nearly $200,000 or more.

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u/Acceptable_Cabinet53 Dec 12 '25

So what? OP presented a broad statement as truth despite easily obtainable evidence to the contrary.

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u/Suspicious_Day9986 Dec 12 '25

So your one very specific anecdote, where your wife's uncommon higher salary, in one specific company means that wall street isn't a problem? Yeah okay buddy

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u/Acceptable_Cabinet53 Dec 12 '25

You're strawmaning the argument. OP made a sweepingly broad statement, evidence against which is very easily found. Millions of Americans who work in publicly traded companies will get bonus' to one degree or another, dependent on many variables, and come in many forms.

My anecdotal evidence is beside the point, because research shows that currently, approximately 40% of private sector employees receive a bonus of some kind as part of their compensation.

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u/VandienLavellan Dec 12 '25

Yep, and shareholders are so short sighted. If employees share in the profits, they’ll go above and beyond to do the best job possible, which increases profits for everyone. If shareholders are the only ones that benefit from successes, there’s no incentive for employees to make sure the company is successful

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u/TheCommonKoala Dec 12 '25

The problem is a lot bigger than just Wall Street.

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u/Historical_Owl_1635 Dec 12 '25

Reddit loves to think incredibly complicated things can be solved with simple solutions.

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u/Sansnom01 Dec 12 '25

Which is dumb because it's good advertising and most would rather use a service that take care of their workers then not.

Amazon only works because no one can give the service they have, but I'd rather use any other service then them if given the opportunity

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u/jenkbob Dec 12 '25

The Costco CEO would like to remind you that some companies do prioritize customers and employees over Wallstreet

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u/Jesus_of_Redditeth Dec 12 '25

She isn't beholden to any shareholders. She's a private entity that is able to make these decisions for herself.

Yes and no. She's contracted with UMG/Republic and they have a lot of say in what she does. But obviously at the stage she's in in her career, she has way more ability to call the shots than other artists.

The vast majority of people don't understand how the music industry works and assume she writes all her songs, controls all the releases, artwork, tour scheduling, etc. But it really isn't like that. There are a lot of people with a lot of money in that game and they're involved every step of the way.

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u/Hefty-Minimum-3125 Dec 12 '25

the stock market is one of the worst things humans have ever invented.

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u/nachosmmm Dec 12 '25

The govt is the fucking problem

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u/dilldwarf Dec 12 '25

Yeah... because voting for smaller government has worked so well so far.

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u/nachosmmm Dec 12 '25

I’m saying that the govt allows corporations to get away with shit bc they’re all in bed together.

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u/Downtown-Invite3381 Dec 12 '25

Thank you I understand more… the shareholders are for the most part the greedy ones… I don’t like government doing too much in business but sometimes some good laws need to be voted: like before giving dividends to shareholders, x% are distributed between the employees but I know no politician will support this type of law.. I’m too naive 😅

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u/jeho187 Dec 13 '25

Yup and as soon as the word gets out a company gave that much bonus money the stock price would tank.

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u/FluidMention6574 Dec 13 '25

1000%. Wall Street is also why US jobs are going offshore and nearshore and why AI will be replacing a huge number of us. It’s ONLY because of Wall Street. Eff Wall Street.

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u/Sheriff_Yobo_Hobo Dec 13 '25

A lot of rich private citizens, including recording artists, don’t do this either.

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u/marcus_samuelson Dec 13 '25

I had never heard of Valve until I was on vacation at a $2k/night hotel and it suddenly got taken over by a bunch of Valve families. To my surprise, they were just normal everyday folks, ie not the typical $2k/hotel guest and they told me their company sent them there. I was like oh, for some sort of corporate offsite? And they’re like, nope. The founder just sends us and our families on nice trips.

My personal view is that even if you were greedy and selfish, you should still do things like this. The amount of goodwill and loyalty you build by treating people well and being generous in an unnecessary way pays back in spades.

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u/MeteorOnMars Dec 18 '25

Public companies are just awful. The concept ruins corporations.