Self-study
Support The more profitable a corporation is, the more valuable its managers' time is. ██ █ ███████ ██ ██ ██████████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██████████ ████████████ ██ ████ █████ ████████ █████ ████ ██████████ ██████████ ████ ████████████ ███ ████ █████ ██ ████████ ████ ███████████ ██ ████ ██ ███ █████████ ███ █████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ████ ███████ █████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ████████████ ███ ████ █████ ██ ██████ █████ █████████ █████████ ████████
Summary
The author concludes that highly profitable companies can save money by paying large bonuses. The author reasons that:
1) It is very costly for managers to spend time monitoring employees
3) Corporations can save money by reducing this monitoring and instead providing incentives to work hard
Notable Assumptions
One assumption is that bonuses are a strong incentive to continue working hard. It’s possible that workers just take the bonuses and don’t work any harder — the stimulus doesn’t have any evidence about whether they will be effective.
Another assumption is that the size of the bonuses is less than the cost of the monitoring. We know that monitoring is very costly, but the stimulus doesn’t tell us exactly how much the expensive bonuses will cost. If the bonuses cost more than the monitoring, then the company won’t save money.
24.
The argument requires the assumption ████
a
only a few ████████████ ████ █████ █████████ ███████ ████ ███████ ██████ ██████ ██████████ ███ ███ █████████ ██ ████ ███████ ████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ███ █████ █████████
We don’t care about what other corporations are currently doing — the argument is proposing something that companies can do in the future to save money. If anything, (A) would undermine the argument by suggesting that it’s difficult to incentivize employees with bonuses.
b
if a highly ██████████ ███████████ █████ ████ █████ ██ ██████ ███ █████████ █████████ ████████ ██ ██ ███████ ██████ ████ ███████ █████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ███ ████████ ████ █████ ██████████ █████ █████████
What if the bonuses also make employees 25% more productive, reducing long-term labor costs? The argument just concludes that corporations can save money by incentivizing employees through bonuses, not that those savings will come from one particular source.
c
the more valuable ███ █████████ ████ ██ ██ █ ████████████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ██ ████ ███ ███████████ ████ ████████ ████ █████ ████████ █████ ████ ██████████ █████████
If we negate this, we would get that corporations with more valuable managers’ time would be more likely to have those managers monitoring employees. This doesn’t make the argument invalid. If anything, it would mean that companies can likely save even more money.
d
for people who ███ █████████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ████████████ █████ ██████████ ██ ████████ █████████ ███████ ██████████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ████ ███████ ████
This is one of the implicit assumptions in the stimulus. If expensive bonuses weren’t an incentive to keep working hard, then they wouldn’t be able to replace monitoring, and wouldn’t offer an opportunity for the company to save money.
e
a highly profitable ███████████ ███ ████ █████ ██ ████████ ███ █████████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ ███ █████████ ███ █████ █████████ ███████
The author is arguing that bonuses are one way to save money — not that they are the only way. Maybe creating a peer-review system could also reduce the amount managers have to monitor employees. The author doesn’t say.