The question of whether an agent’s interests are aligned with the principal’s is largely orthogonal to the question of whether the agent achieves a positive return. The agent’s expected return is more relevant.
There were many agents involved in the recent financial unpleasantness whose harm was enabled by the principal-agent problem. My intended examples did not suffer that problem. I could have made that clearer.
The question of whether an agent’s interests are aligned with the principal’s is largely orthogonal to the question of whether the agent achieves a positive return. The agent’s expected return is more relevant.
There were many agents involved in the recent financial unpleasantness whose harm was enabled by the principal-agent problem. My intended examples did not suffer that problem. I could have made that clearer.