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Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers

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Re: Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers

#41

Post by mac01021 »

golemotron wrote: post #30

The thing about markets is that they cut through all of the fuzzy thinking about what jobs "should" pay more than others, and tell us what we actually pay - what we collectively find valuable. That reality escapes most people.

That's probably 90% true, but there are phenomena that defy this.

Imagine you live in a society where the population is mainly composed of two segments. Members of the first segment enjoy consuming service A. Members of the second segment would benefit tremendously from service B, but all the money is held by the first segment. Which service are you going to spend your time offering to the public?

This is at least part of the reason that, as a software engineer, I am much better off selling my time to an advertising company than (say) running a programming/compsci dojo for middle school kids in a low-income urban community.

You'll say, of course, that advertising is so lucrative because businesses around the world (and therefore the society made up of them) value the extra income that advertising provides. You'll say that society as a whole does, in fact, want more, better advertisements. But I suspect that there is a segment of the population just as large that would rather everyone in the advertising industry do something else. Only that segment can't pay.

Re: Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers

#42

Post by veronicatorez »

meric wrote: post #5
armenarmen wrote: post #4

> Nearly a century ago, economist John Maynard Keynes famously predicted that we would work fifteen-hour weeks by the year 2030 In 1930, when Keynes predicted the 15 hour work week, the average American earned $1,368/year which is roughly $19,500/year in todays dollars. 19500/52 = $375/week. In 1930, in manufacturing, the average person worked 50.6 hours per week. ( https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-hi…

60% of families are dual income. [1] (53657/1.6) / 52 = $644. That makes the hourly rate $18.72. So around 20 hours to make 1930's purchasing power. Keynes prediction still ahead. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/18/5-facts-abou...

Interesting read.

Re: Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers

#43

Post by lmm »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #36
lmm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those two things should be aligned - that's how capitalism works. There are cases where we create the wrong incentives - e.g. the whole HFT industry exists because the sub-penny rule forbids market-makers from competing on price - but let's fix those. Fundamentally the best way to make money should be - and in my view largely is - by creating value for your clients.

> Fundamentally the best way to make money should be - and in my view largely is - by creating value for your clients. Should be - yes. And to a great extent it was - that's why capitalism is undeniably responsible for propelling (most of) us into the age of prosperity we now enjoy. But I disagree creating (social, not just economic) value for clients is the best way to make money now. Profit and value motives are in…

> In contemporary marketplace, providing honest value to customers is not a competitive strategy - hence less and less of it happens (it's painfully visible in our industry - it's why most Internet startups are bullshit).

Examples? People might not like what Facebook/Snapchat/Uber/Amazon/etc. are doing (and in some cases I would agree with the criticism - I certainly think startups whose business model involves getting people to break the law need to be held to account), but they're undeniably providing a lot of honest value to their users.

Re: Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers

#44

Post by TeMPOraL »

lmm wrote: post #43
TeMPOraL wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fundamentally the best way to make money should be - and in my view largely is - by creating value for your clients. Should be - yes. And to a great extent it was - that's why capitalism is undeniably responsible for propelling (most of) us into the age of prosperity we now enjoy. But I disagree creating (social, not just economic) value for clients is the best way to make money now. Profit and value motives are in…

> In contemporary marketplace, providing honest value to customers is not a competitive strategy - hence less and less of it happens (it's painfully visible in our industry - it's why most Internet startups are bullshit). Examples? People might not like what Facebook/Snapchat/Uber/Amazon/etc. are doing (and in some cases I would agree with the criticism - I certainly think startups whose business model involves getti…

I wasn't thinking about Facebook, Snapchat, Amazon or even Uber - those are examples of companies that do provide a lot of honest value (not to mention I wouldn't call either of them a startup now). I meant all your random SaaS businesses that try to "change the world" by doing something utterly irrelevant that's only meant to give them enough growth to have a shot at getting acquihired by an established corporation.

Re: Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers

#45

Post by Chris2048 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #32
Tomte wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a waste, when a patient dies in a shining, clean ward because no doctor was there. ;-) But I agree, cleaners should be more respected.

And now that we've stated both boundary conditions, we can have a productive discussion - is the pay allocation in a hospital arranged optimally in terms of lifes saved and if not, then how can we shift the arrangement (i.e. who should be paid more, and who less) to maximize the effectiveness of that hospital in saving lives?

Doctors are harder to train, as such they are a rarer resource, and more expensive. We can freely pay cleaners less, and purchase more doctors. Isn't that how it works?

Re: Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers

#46

Post by TeMPOraL »

Chris2048 wrote: post #45
TeMPOraL wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now that we've stated both boundary conditions, we can have a productive discussion - is the pay allocation in a hospital arranged optimally in terms of lifes saved and if not, then how can we shift the arrangement (i.e. who should be paid more, and who less) to maximize the effectiveness of that hospital in saving lives?

Doctors are harder to train, as such they are a rarer resource, and more expensive. We can freely pay cleaners less, and purchase more doctors. Isn't that how it works?

Yes, but hiring more doctors is counterproductive if their work is regularly being undone because of bad sanitation. In such a case, a dollar invested in cleaners buys a greater fraction of lives than same dollar invested in doctors.

Re: Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers

#47

Post by Sam-------- »

IMO this is wrong: Most any banker can become a garbageman. They are way overpaid, that's why there is a lottery for the jobs. Is the reverse true?

Relying on strike time to tragedy is complete BS. As we saw in 2007/8 when banker messed up the consequences are indeed harsh.

None of this works without gov putting its thumb on the scales. Where do you think the lack of innovation came from?

Re: Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers

#48

Post by SimpleXYZ »

meric wrote: post #5
armenarmen wrote: post #4

> Nearly a century ago, economist John Maynard Keynes famously predicted that we would work fifteen-hour weeks by the year 2030 In 1930, when Keynes predicted the 15 hour work week, the average American earned $1,368/year which is roughly $19,500/year in todays dollars. 19500/52 = $375/week. In 1930, in manufacturing, the average person worked 50.6 hours per week. ( https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-hi…

60% of families are dual income. [1] (53657/1.6) / 52 = $644. That makes the hourly rate $18.72. So around 20 hours to make 1930's purchasing power. Keynes prediction still ahead. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/18/5-facts-abou...

In that case I would predict we'll hit it at around, say, 2030.

Re: Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers

#49

Post by GFischer »

meric wrote: post #2

http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/24/news/economy/trash-workers-h... Some garbagemen do make $100000, more than some bankers (and some software engineers), as they rightly should, as described in this article.

Garbageman used to be a very highly sought-after job a few years ago in my city.

160.000 out of a population of a million registered for a lottery to be considered for one of the 200 spots back in 2006.

It helped that they had an employment contract that basically guaranteed them employment for life and several perks.

Nowadays the city government privatized most of the garbage collection, so it's not such a great deal anymore (the employees they hired before on advantageous conditions are still employed and working though).

http://www.espectador.com/sociedad/83328/se-realiza-el-sorte...

Re: Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers

#50

Post by lmm »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #44
lmm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In contemporary marketplace, providing honest value to customers is not a competitive strategy - hence less and less of it happens (it's painfully visible in our industry - it's why most Internet startups are bullshit). Examples? People might not like what Facebook/Snapchat/Uber/Amazon/etc. are doing (and in some cases I would agree with the criticism - I certainly think startups whose business model involves getti…

I wasn't thinking about Facebook, Snapchat, Amazon or even Uber - those are examples of companies that do provide a lot of honest value (not to mention I wouldn't call either of them a startup now). I meant all your random SaaS businesses that try to "change the world" by doing something utterly irrelevant that's only meant to give them enough growth to have a shot at getting acquihired by an established corporation.

You're going to have to give some concrete examples. All the "typical" SV startups I can think of were very much about creating value for the user. (If anything the lacuna in the business model tends to be around getting the user to pay for that value).
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