Monday, November 27, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/27/business/27richer.html?em&ex=1164776400&en=3de49a5ba64ea3c0&ei=5087%0A
this is a very interesting concept with shamefully poor execution. It is nominally about the implications of the rise of careers or subfields within careers whose compensation packages are vastly disproporionate to those with similar levels of training.
the author threatens to investigate the interesting ideas here:
1. This phenomenon is diverting skilled workers from socially meaningful but comparatively underpaid work,
2. The social reasons for people to make choices that emphasize pay: lack of confidence in the long term coproation-employee contract, declines in the confidence in the welfare state, increasing social isolation.
3. Real pros and cons to such a career choice
but instead this piece winds up reading like something out of people magazine. it features anecdotes about rich people who chose to be management consultants or hedge fund managers without creating much a framework for these stories. The most interesting part of the article to me is listening to our featured workers describe their consumption relative to their peers rather than in absolute terms. There is a confusing detour about philanthropy which is totally unrelated to any of the articles featured workers. it is poorly structured and too timid to either criticize this developing social trend, but it is also too timid to laud our masters of the universe unequivocally either. I guess this is explained by the fact that the article appears in the business section of the new york times instead of the NYT sunday magazine or Forbes. It's reporting style is caught in ideological limbo and it paralyzes the article.
this is a very interesting concept with shamefully poor execution. It is nominally about the implications of the rise of careers or subfields within careers whose compensation packages are vastly disproporionate to those with similar levels of training.
the author threatens to investigate the interesting ideas here:
1. This phenomenon is diverting skilled workers from socially meaningful but comparatively underpaid work,
2. The social reasons for people to make choices that emphasize pay: lack of confidence in the long term coproation-employee contract, declines in the confidence in the welfare state, increasing social isolation.
3. Real pros and cons to such a career choice
but instead this piece winds up reading like something out of people magazine. it features anecdotes about rich people who chose to be management consultants or hedge fund managers without creating much a framework for these stories. The most interesting part of the article to me is listening to our featured workers describe their consumption relative to their peers rather than in absolute terms. There is a confusing detour about philanthropy which is totally unrelated to any of the articles featured workers. it is poorly structured and too timid to either criticize this developing social trend, but it is also too timid to laud our masters of the universe unequivocally either. I guess this is explained by the fact that the article appears in the business section of the new york times instead of the NYT sunday magazine or Forbes. It's reporting style is caught in ideological limbo and it paralyzes the article.
# posted by 8yearoldsdude @ 4:38 PM 
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I agree that it is a great idea for an article, though poorly executed.
I think professional organizations, such as the American Bar Association set up some sort of a fund to better provide for, or at least forgive the student loans of, attorneys working in public interest fields. To be certain, the private sector has always paid more than the ACLU, the NAACP, or the Northwestern Innocence Project. However, the private sector used to pay 50% more, and now it pays 200%-400% more, depending on the city. A Harvard law graduate who goes to work for Skadden Arps will earn $160,000 in their first year, after bonus. Her classmate at the ACLU will be lucky to earn $40,000, with worse, if any, benefits. I don't buy the argument that society just values those private sector jobs more, because society never comes into the picture. Its all about what your clients can afford, and poor people have just as many rights as profitable corporations.
The same is true for medical doctors. Doctors Without Borders doesn't pay very much. For that matter, Infectious Disease specialists at leading hospitals earn only a fraction of what their colleagues in radiology and plastics earn. Its a shame. Those other fields might be able to get away with charging higher fees, but they don't bring honor and respectabilty to the profession in the same way. I would like to see our licensing organizations redistribute income to a certain extent, because it would be good for both the professions and for society in the long run.
I think professional organizations, such as the American Bar Association set up some sort of a fund to better provide for, or at least forgive the student loans of, attorneys working in public interest fields. To be certain, the private sector has always paid more than the ACLU, the NAACP, or the Northwestern Innocence Project. However, the private sector used to pay 50% more, and now it pays 200%-400% more, depending on the city. A Harvard law graduate who goes to work for Skadden Arps will earn $160,000 in their first year, after bonus. Her classmate at the ACLU will be lucky to earn $40,000, with worse, if any, benefits. I don't buy the argument that society just values those private sector jobs more, because society never comes into the picture. Its all about what your clients can afford, and poor people have just as many rights as profitable corporations.
The same is true for medical doctors. Doctors Without Borders doesn't pay very much. For that matter, Infectious Disease specialists at leading hospitals earn only a fraction of what their colleagues in radiology and plastics earn. Its a shame. Those other fields might be able to get away with charging higher fees, but they don't bring honor and respectabilty to the profession in the same way. I would like to see our licensing organizations redistribute income to a certain extent, because it would be good for both the professions and for society in the long run.
Investment Bankers are a different story. Their salaries skyrocketed in the mid 1980s, largely because they are paid on a percetage basis, so that when corporate raiders started buying out $25 billion companies, investment bankers got paid five times as much for their services relative to those on a $5 billion buyout, despite the fact that they didn't do that much additional work. Nobody stopped to ask why investment bankers suddenly went from upper-middle class to practically landed gentry, but its never going back. Suddenly, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton graduates who once had a choice between several profitable professions now had to choose between a couple of learned and somewhat lucrative profession and one extraordinarily lucrative profession that had the disadvantage of turning almost everybody who works in it into a total douchebag overnight. That was a big change. It mattered. 25 years ago, Yale seniors with good grades sought out a number of different jobs, but they line up to interview with Goldman Sachs. Good for them, I guess. I just don't want to spend my free time with very many of them.
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