Dalmia argues that President Sarkozy is wrong when he says that financial services' outrageous executive bonuses should be eliminated because they don't measure and respond to merit as we expect the free market to respond. Dalmia says that the market rewards value not merit and executives are probably producing some value in some market niche.
First, Sarkozy is right, outrageous executive bonuses are unrelated to merit. I have proposed the only viable solution to this problem (setting out public compensation packages that everyone can understand and which are tied to performance). The reason we don't have a rational connection, that Sarkozy and I want, between compensation and merit is that these complex issues take decades to sort themselves out. Also, the cozy little love nests of CEO's and their boards of directors are too incestuous to seek solutions.
Nobody has the choice to buy the corporate stock XYZ or corporate product XYZ with more or less outrageous executive compensation built into the stock or product.
Merit is not built into every part of commerce. It is a general direction of commerce.
Plenty of companies survive with the idiot brother running the purchasing department, even with the founder's daughter being CEO. But 99 out of 100 companies are more profitable, more likely to survive if they hire based on merit and reward merit.
I can't define merit, it is entirely content and niche defined; but it is not nepotism and not political favoritism.
Sarkozy is right, Dalmia is wrong.