Hospital janitors are worth more to society than bankers

[WhipperSnapper]

High pay for janitors? Are you kidding? The more janitors cost, the more companies will outsource jobs to developing nations like China and India.

...or the more they'll hire illegals under the table.

 

[alphatarget1]

No offense, but that's a lot different from your original statement that the first two years are the same. Remembering back I took racquetball, backpacking, and literature as electives - I cannot recall any others. (Granted it's been thirty years.) The only place I encountered students in soft science or liberal arts majors was in those courses and a few in chemistry; they were taking little or no science and their math was pre-algabra, algabra, and "advanced math" which were all high school math. Their only science was biology and/or chemistry, only one of the two for liberal arts majors. There is a reason for the old joke that a liberal arts graduate says "you want fries with that?" and it is because a liberal arts graduate is qualified to do nothing except marry well or possibly teach liberal arts to others. Nothing against sociology in particular, but we have far too many sociology and philosophy and psychology graduates. Still, if counseling is what you really want to do, then it's good you dropped out of engineering, it's too much work to do just by default and you no doubt make a much better counselor. Whenever possible, people are better off doing what they enjoy even if they make less money.

I wouldn't deny that good psychotherapy is better than a small to moderate raise to eliminate "psychological distress", but the vast majority of people are not suffering from that and would benefit much more from a small to moderate raise than from psychotherapy, even good psychotherapy. Saying that psychotherapy can boost happiness more than money is misleading.

A friend of mine got suckered into doing liberal arts, graduated with 45k of debt and is now working at a job that pays 25k.

 

[ShawnD1]

The only place I encountered students in soft science or liberal arts majors was in those courses and a few in chemistry; they were taking little or no science and their math was pre-algabra, algabra, and "advanced math" which were all high school math. Their only science was biology and/or chemistry, only one of the two for liberal arts majors. There is a reason for the old joke that a liberal arts graduate says "you want fries with that?" and it is because a liberal arts graduate is qualified to do nothing except marry well or possibly teach liberal arts to others.

Try to keep in mind that people don't take liberal arts for the sake of getting a job. They just want to learn things (and fuck around for 4 years).

For people who want their education to actually make money, they get vocational education.
I have a 2 year certificate for analytical chemistry and I worked for several drug companies

A friend of mine got suckered into doing liberal arts, graduated with 45k of debt and is now working at a job that pays 25k.

God damn, son. I got out of chemistry because I thought $36k I was making sucked balls. I'll be out of electrical engineering by the end of the year and the expected starting pay is $50-60k. Last year's job placement survey for my school found that 92% of the EE grads found full time engineering work and the average pay was $60k.

Related to the topic: yes electrical workers should get paid $60k. The amount of danger involved when dealing with high voltage equipment is unbelievable.

 

[werepossum]

Try to keep in mind that people don't take liberal arts for the sake of getting a job. They just want to learn things (and fuck around for 4 years).

For people who want their education to actually make money, they get vocational education.
I have a 2 year certificate for analytical chemistry and I worked for several drug companies

That's true to some extent, although some jobs in large corporations and government require a four year degree, but have no stipulation as to subject. I am a big fan of vocational schools though, as by definition they teach skills that increase the wealth of a society. 17th century French poetry - not so much.

 

[daishi5]

That's true to some extent, although some jobs in large corporations and government require a four year degree, but have no stipulation as to subject. I am a big fan of vocational schools though, as by definition they teach skills that increase the wealth of a society. 17th century French poetry - not so much.

That is not completely true, any college degree from a decent school provides some benefit. Mostly it demonstrates a basic level of competence, which high school diplomas used to do. That is why there are a core set of classes such as the basic english, math, and science courses. If you have a degree from a decent university, your employer knows you can write and speak english, understand algebra, and can complete tasks without being supervised.

The problem is that high schools should be providing this benefit, the costs of college are too high just to help employers identify a basic level of competence.

(And for irony, I am certain I made a stupid grammatical error in this post, but I can't seem to find it or I may be paranoid.)

 

[werepossum]

That is not completely true, any college degree from a decent school provides some benefit. Mostly it demonstrates a basic level of competence, which high school diplomas used to do. That is why there are a core set of classes such as the basic english, math, and science courses. If you have a degree from a decent university, your employer knows you can write and speak english, understand algebra, and can complete tasks without being supervised.

The problem is that high schools should be providing this benefit, the costs of college are too high just to help employers identify a basic level of competence.

(And for irony, I am certain I made a stupid grammatical error in this post, but I can't seem to find it or I may be paranoid.)

Agreed.

 

[ShawnD1]

The problem is that high schools should be providing this benefit, the costs of college are too high just to help employers identify a basic level of competence.

It's a shame that high school graduation requirements are low. I learned a lot of great stuff in high school. I learned how lasers work, how to do basic slope/area/volume calculus, how exponents and logarithms relate to things like nuclear decay and interest on investments, how batteries work, how electricity works, what a "sacrificial anode" is (prevent rust on your car by oxidizing a piece of zinc instead), how inorganic and organic oxidation works and how you can predict what a chemical will turn into when it's exposed to fire. Even though I learned all of that stuff, putting "high school diploma" on my resume means fuck all because that could just as easily mean I can barely spell my own name.

We could probably reduce the cost of education by quite a bit if we just eliminated all of the watered down classes. Instead of having smart and stupid grade 12 math, there's just smart grade 12 math. There shouldn't be any shame in not being able to pass smart grade 12 math. All it means is that the person would have a diploma that says "grade 11".

 

[daishi5]

I agree.

The 'free market' has all kinds of bias in it, not visible to those who aren't looking.

It's 'a' way to determine salaries - and has plenty of unfairness.

People who argue for the 'free market' system and against this don't have a point - they don't care about fairness, are happy with the people who clean their toilets and their parents costing as littls as possible.

It's a sort of view based on not treating those workers as equal people to care about, dehumanizing.

It's ther same type of invisibility as on other historic issues of social justice. Blacks were often 'invisible' when discriminatred against, you didn't need to pay any attention to it, you just preserved your own advantage. Women were often invisible on things like the right to vote, not an issue until they made it one, and had the lucky access as family members to push their 'agenda'. Poverty around the world, invisible as our media rarely covers it, pandering with nonsense in our nation. The handicapped were long invisible until someone pushed parking and access laws. And so on. It's a cop ouit to pretend the 'free market' addresses justice.

I want to respond to this post in depth, but the problems inherent in your rant are so deep it would require me starting from the very basic concepts from the wealth of nations. Your desire to see a better world for all its citizens has caused you to make arguments that almost completely ignore some of the basic truths of the world. I fear solutions from people like you, even though I know you may have the noblest of intentions. But, you cannot implement solutions that pretend the world works the way you want it to and expect good results.

For example, I posted this in a thread a few months ago with a link to the actual study, there is some evidence that affirmitive action in police departments may actually harm police department performance and lead to an increase in violent crimes. Just so I am clear, affirmitive action in police deparments very well may cause more people to be beaten, raped, and murdered.

And just so you don't go of on some rant about my "right wing" ideals, I do see the benefit in some affirmitive action programs, but I am also aware that they harm people at the same time. I am willing to accept that some times the harm is worth the gain, but all too often the proponents of corrective policies like affirmitive action are so enamored with their own idea, they refuse to make changes if there are unintended consequences.

 

[werepossum]

I want to respond to this post in depth, but the problems inherent in your rant are so deep it would require me starting from the very basic concepts from the wealth of nations. Your desire to see a better world for all its citizens has caused you to make arguments that almost completely ignore some of the basic truths of the world. I fear solutions from people like you, even though I know you may have the noblest of intentions. But, you cannot implement solutions that pretend the world works the way you want it to and expect good results.

For example, I posted this in a thread a few months ago with a link to the actual study, there is some evidence that affirmitive action in police departments may actually harm police department performance and lead to an increase in violent crimes. Just so I am clear, affirmitive action in police deparments very well may cause more people to be beaten, raped, and murdered.

And just so you don't go of on some rant about my "right wing" ideals, I do see the benefit in some affirmitive action programs, but I am also aware that they harm people at the same time. I am willing to accept that some times the harm is worth the gain, but all too often the proponents of corrective policies like affirmitive action are so enamored with their own idea, they refuse to make changes if there are unintended consequences.

Well said, you smart fella.

 

[ebaycj]

Engineers are not fluff workers, because they also create value. I'm talking about jobs like lawyers and finance execs - those jobs either create no value, or only create paper value by shuffling money.

Lawyers are certainly very valuable to people accused of committing a crime.

I think you meant Intellectual Property Lawyers. No, because they are very valuable to companies that have actual, legitimate IP that needs defending.

I think you meant Personal Injury Lawyers. No, because they are very valuable to people who were legitimately injured due to no fault of their own.

I think you meant Class Action Lawyers. No, because they are very valuable to groups of people who were legitimately harmed / defrauded / etc..

Hmm.. putting Lawyers in a box like that seems somewhat counter productive. You probably should have thought of that, but likely didn't.

 

[daishi5]

It's a shame that high school graduation requirements are low. I learned a lot of great stuff in high school. I learned how lasers work, how to do basic slope/area/volume calculus, how exponents and logarithms relate to things like nuclear decay and interest on investments, how batteries work, how electricity works, what a "sacrificial anode" is (prevent rust on your car by oxidizing a piece of zinc instead), how inorganic and organic oxidation works and how you can predict what a chemical will turn into when it's exposed to fire. Even though I learned all of that stuff, putting "high school diploma" on my resume means fuck all because that could just as easily mean I can barely spell my own name.

We could probably reduce the cost of education by quite a bit if we just eliminated all of the watered down classes. Instead of having smart and stupid grade 12 math, there's just smart grade 12 math. There shouldn't be any shame in not being able to pass smart grade 12 math. All it means is that the person would have a diploma that says "grade 11".

It is a complex problem, that we can't fix overnight.

Here is one complex problem for example, and there are many more:

The high school used to perform the function of solving a "trust" problem between employer and employee, I.E. high school graduates could be assumed to have a certain level of competence.

However, once school integration started it combined a good system with a poor system. Schools for minorities were underfunded, lacked the support they needed and racism prevented black students from reaching their full potential. There were a lot of attempts to fix these problems, some of them good, some bad, but there was one major problem that I want to focus on. The success of many programs that were intended to correct the wrongs of racism were judged by graduation rates. This is a major agent issue.

Employers and employees benefit from a high school system that only passes quality students, because then the high school system solves a trust problem, and certifies its students as meeting a certain level of quality. However, many people sought an easy solution for the racism problem, and they wanted those black children to graduate. There was an assumption that if graduation rates improved, it meant they were succeeding in fixing some of the problems our countries racist history had caused. I think the National Goals for Education still desire a 90% graduation rate as one of their goals to this day. The problem is that graduation only works as a measure of success if graduation is a valid indicator of student performance.

There are two ways to meet that goals, lower standards or raise the students performance. Unfortunately, only one of those is really in the control of the school system. There are a lot of studies that seem to indicate that friends, parents, and other non-school influences have a very strong effect on students ability to achieve. If I recall correctly, these other influences are much stronger than the schools. So, our school system has a goal that it cannot meet with the tools at its disposal. There are many administrators in charge of the school system who are going to be held responsible for failing to meet those goals. This is probably the biggest problem of the whole situation, administrators who don't have the tools to meet the goal, and whose ability to provide for their family may be threatened by failing to meet that goal. So these administrators have a choice. They can do their best and try to raise student performance and they will most likely fail because most of the factors of success are out of their control, thus they risk losing their jobs and the ability to feed their family and provide provide for their children. Their other choice, lower the standards just enough to ensure they look like they are making progress, and they can ensure their family is fed and their children are well cared for.

This idea of graduation % as a measure of success is very bad from everything I know about. It can actually reward the people who control the system if they lower the requirements for graduation, which undermines the entire idea of the diploma serving as proof of competency. This leads to what we see today, high school diplomas are almost worthless. (there are a lot of other factors, this is just one) Now, high school diplomas still show some benefit, but that is because they still convey some level of achievement, but it is less trustworthy.

 

[werepossum]

It is a complex problem, that we can't fix overnight.

Here is one complex problem for example, and there are many more:

The high school used to perform the function of solving a "trust" problem between employer and employee, I.E. high school graduates could be assumed to have a certain level of competence.

However, once school integration started it combined a good system with a poor system. Schools for minorities were underfunded, lacked the support they needed and racism prevented black students from reaching their full potential. There were a lot of attempts to fix these problems, some of them good, some bad, but there was one major problem that I want to focus on. The success of many programs that were intended to correct the wrongs of racism were judged by graduation rates. This is a major agent issue.

Employers and employees benefit from a high school system that only passes quality students, because then the high school system solves a trust problem, and certifies its students as meeting a certain level of quality. However, many people sought an easy solution for the racism problem, and they wanted those black children to graduate. There was an assumption that if graduation rates improved, it meant they were succeeding in fixing some of the problems our countries racist history had caused. I think the National Goals for Education still desire a 90% graduation rate as one of their goals to this day. The problem is that graduation only works as a measure of success if graduation is a valid indicator of student performance.

There are two ways to meet that goals, lower standards or raise the students performance. Unfortunately, only one of those is really in the control of the school system. There are a lot of studies that seem to indicate that friends, parents, and other non-school influences have a very strong effect on students ability to achieve. If I recall correctly, these other influences are much stronger than the schools. So, our school system has a goal that it cannot meet with the tools at its disposal. There are many administrators in charge of the school system who are going to be held responsible for failing to meet those goals. This is probably the biggest problem of the whole situation, administrators who don't have the tools to meet the goal, and whose ability to provide for their family may be threatened by failing to meet that goal. So these administrators have a choice. They can do their best and try to raise student performance and they will most likely fail because most of the factors of success are out of their control, thus they risk losing their jobs and the ability to feed their family and provide provide for their children. Their other choice, lower the standards just enough to ensure they look like they are making progress, and they can ensure their family is fed and their children are well cared for.

This idea of graduation % as a measure of success is very bad from everything I know about. It can actually reward the people who control the system if they lower the requirements for graduation, which undermines the entire idea of the diploma serving as proof of competency. This leads to what we see today, high school diplomas are almost worthless. (there are a lot of other factors, this is just one) Now, high school diplomas still show some benefit, but that is because they still convey some level of achievement, but it is less trustworthy.

Good post. One of the very few positives of the Department of Education has been the institution of standardized tests, a sort of government fix to a government problem. Part of No Child Left Behind was to punish the very worst schools and teachers and move students into schools that weren't quite so bad. Most of that got edited out, though, leaving with yet another federal program flinging money like monkeys with poo and acid.

 

[LegendKiller]

No, you are putting words in my mouth I never said. Your dishonesty, your hostility, your profane name-calling, are quite misdirected and you need to get a grip on *yourself*, 'toolbag'.



And more gargabe I never said. You appear to havbe lost your mind in defensiveness against the things you are 'quoting' that I never said.

But if you want to play on a message forum, you need to not run around recklessly attacking people and falsely attributiing statements to them.

I have always been careful, including in recent posts today, to distinguish the good and bad Wall Street does. The majority of people in the banking industry are doing productive things.

In fact, I was just making that point defending the legiitmate part of Wall Street tonight to someone who was painting with too broad a brush.

But the fact is that Wall Street has been doing a lot of new things that are not productive, that are parasitic, that are 'gambling', in recent years - and recently often with tax money, bailouit or 0% loans.

You have in the past had some ability to recognize flaws with Wall Street bad behavior, so I posted to you civilly with the expectation for you to be honest.

You respond with this dishonest, selective, attacking garbage.

You want to deal with reality and be rational, or you want to be and be shown to be the fool you are choosing to be? Your choice.

You need to take a deep breath and stop the idiotic and dishonest attacks you have succumbed to, and pick your targets as those who are actually saying what you are upset with in your recent paranoia.

Please, get over your faux righteous indignation bullshit. Your arguments are trash, your logic is lacking, and your only ability to discuss this comes down to populist platitudes and shit data.

The study is trash, financial intermediation does add significant benefit to society. How do you think the buildings the janitor cleans get paid for? Do you suddenly think that the hospitals built are paid for through pixie dust?

Sure, Wall Street got greedy, but so did millions of "investors" in houses. Blaming one or the other exclusively, as you seem apt to do, is ridiculous.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Good post. One of the very few positives of the Department of Education has been the institution of standardized tests, a sort of government fix to a government problem. Part of No Child Left Behind was to punish the very worst schools and teachers and move students into schools that weren't quite so bad. Most of that got edited out, though, leaving with yet another federal program flinging money like monkeys with poo and acid.

how do you separate a bad teacher from bad students? i'm not saying bad teachers don't exist - just that not all teachers, whose classes perform poorly, are bad teachers.

 

[daishi5]

how do you separate a bad teacher from bad students? i'm not saying bad teachers don't exist - just that not all teachers, whose classes perform poorly, are bad teachers.

Hard questions, but other social sciences may have some answers. Standardized testing is helpful, but it all too often encourages teaching to the test rather than teaching excellence. What we could do is track student achievement throughout their time in school, and then compare the performance over time of each student that was taught by a teacher against the general performance of other students that match their demographics. (parents income, parents education, home situation etc...) Then we need to keep the top 80-90%.

I know the % seems really high, but we have a huge amount of children to teach. We need to accept that not all teachers can be the best of the teaching world, unless we are willing to pay enough to bring in the very best of talent (and we are not willing to do that).

I also worry if we had good data on which teachers were best, we would see a huge amount of pressure by parents to get their children to the best teachers (and I would not blame the parents). Which might lead to the rich parents with the most resources hoarding the best teachers, and this would hurt the minorities as the best teachers would be taken from them. We already see this to an extent with school districts, but with better data I believe the rich parents would only become more effective at monopolizing the best teaching resources our country has to offer. On the other hand, if they start handing out really huge rewards to good teachers, we might see a boom in the teaching industry if it becomes more likely that good teachers get much better pay. I think either scenario is possible, I just worry that those without financial resources might suffer and cause further class stagnation.

 

[Craig234]

I want to respond to this post in depth, but the problems inherent in your rant are so deep it would require me starting from the very basic concepts from the wealth of nations. Your desire to see a better world for all its citizens has caused you to make arguments that almost completely ignore some of the basic truths of the world. I fear solutions from people like you, even though I know you may have the noblest of intentions. But, you cannot implement solutions that pretend the world works the way you want it to and expect good results.

For example, I posted this in a thread a few months ago with a link to the actual study, there is some evidence that affirmitive action in police departments may actually harm police department performance and lead to an increase in violent crimes. Just so I am clear, affirmitive action in police deparments very well may cause more people to be beaten, raped, and murdered.

And just so you don't go of on some rant about my "right wing" ideals, I do see the benefit in some affirmitive action programs, but I am also aware that they harm people at the same time. I am willing to accept that some times the harm is worth the gain, but all too often the proponents of corrective policies like affirmitive action are so enamored with their own idea, they refuse to make changes if there are unintended consequences.

Too bad you don't care to be specific on the larger issues you mention, as long as you would have an openness.

You do not sound like a right-wing ideologue. You are looking at the facts and responding in a rational manner.

We might even agree on some things you might be surprised by. You seem to be taking the reasonable approach in looking at the tradeoffs of specific affirmative action programs.

 

[Craig234]

Please, get over your faux righteous indignation bullshit. Your arguments are trash, your logic is lacking, and your only ability to discuss this comes down to populist platitudes and shit data.

The study is trash, financial intermediation does add significant benefit to society. How do you think the buildings the janitor cleans get paid for? Do you suddenly think that the hospitals built are paid for through pixie dust?

Sure, Wall Street got greedy, but so did millions of "investors" in houses. Blaming one or the other exclusively, as you seem apt to do, is ridiculous.

You're an idiot despite how technically informed you are. I'm not going to respond to most of your trash I skimmed, but you're here railing against a straw man you put the words in my mouth for, I said the opposite.

You could be and have been a good resource here. You choose to be a dishonest, obnoxious, clueless ass.

Why you slid down to some whiny profane man-child who can't help but spew moronic comments about how the blame is shared by irresponsible borrowers, only you can say. But as far as I'm concerned, don't.

 

[Craig234]

PM sent

Ya, I had a lengthy reply to a post you made ot me, I spent a while on it and felt it was better for PM than post and tried to PM it, and get the error, and then this lousy board/browser/whatever lost it, saying I wasn't logged in and to log in , but when I did log in there's some other error saying hit back, at which point it's gone. But I didn't ignore your post.

 

[Craig234]

And yet wealth doesn't guarantee happiness. Saw a study the other day that essentially equated $1300 worth of psychotherapy to a $40,000 pay increase in terms of how much it improved a persons mood/happiness. I didn't read the actual study so I haven't analyzed it at all, but I thought it was interesting.

Another study says money increases happiness for the poor up to about the median income where people aren't stressing so much, and has little impact above that.

 

[LegendKiller]

You're an idiot despite how technically informed you are. I'm not going to respond to most of your trash I skimmed, but you're here railing against a straw man you put the words in my mouth for, I said the opposite.

You could be and have been a good resource here. You choose to be a dishonest, obnoxious, clueless ass.

Why you slid down to some whiny profane man-child who can't help but spew moronic comments about how the blame is shared by irresponsible borrowers, only you can say. But as far as I'm concerned, don't.

LOL@"technically informed". Basically that means that your populist bullshit doesn't work with me.

Thanks for trying though.

 

[daishi5]

Too bad you don't care to be specific on the larger issues you mention, as long as you would have an openness.

You do not sound like a right-wing ideologue. You are looking at the facts and responding in a rational manner.

We might even agree on some things you might be surprised by. You seem to be taking the reasonable approach in looking at the tradeoffs of specific affirmative action programs.

I would like to do so in more depth at some time, but these are really touchy issues, that are very deeply held by some people. But, for example, the idea that people should be paid "fairly." I find the problem is that fair is never given a true definition.
For example:

1. Does fair mean everyone is paid equally, we might have hard time convincing the best surgeons to go through all that training if they could get just as much money serving burgers. (not to mention avoid the stress of possibly killing someone) Yes, some surgeons would still do it and they would be good, but some surgeons are greedy bastards and good surgeons at the same time, and without the big reward we would lose out on some very good medical skills.

2. Does fair mean each person gets paid equal to the value he produces. This sounds wonderful, but some people are not capable of producing a value great enough to support them. Our societies production efficiency has made this less common, but for an extreme example, a man crippled from birth whom is only able to move one leg. He requires a lot more money to survive due to his care requirements, but at the same time, he is much less likely to be able to produce a high level of value (yes there are exceptions to this). If he produces less value than he needs to survive, should we let him die?

3. Should we pay a certain pay amount for different jobs? This may sound like a good compromise, but if we pay just as much for a crappy mechanic as we do an amazing mechanic, then some people who could be great will decide to never invest the effort.

4. Should we do what we do now? We have 1 in 8 people going hungry, and huge bonuses going to financial executives who almost destroyed the financial backing our economy relies on.

Then there are even more problems, for example, I just had a conversation with my father last night about executive pay at the CEO level.
(I only have a very high level understanding of how CEO pay is determined, and how stockholders, boards, and executives all relate because I really don't care about it, so if I make a big mistake in my understanding the following could be garbage, just an FYI)

The executives of a company represent a boards interest, and they are supposed to maximize shareholder value. I think that even in a perfect world, where CEO's always put the boards interests first and are good upstanding people, we would see ridicuolous CEO pay. The problem is the stockholders really only have input on major company decisions, and the executives. If the company has 100 million shares (for example, Mastercard has 127 million outstanding), and the company can make each share $1 more valuable by offering a pay increase of $50 million to get a better CEO, they will do it. For them it would be a gain of around $0.50 per share to make that move. In fact, the shareholders are really in a competition to attract the very very best of the corporate world, and there are only so many people who have C level experience, and I am guessing many of them are not very good at it, so there are a lot of stockholders, with a lot of money, competing for a few people (who may or may not be good), with a very large amount of money to be had if the choose the right man. Putting up a huge salary offers the prospective CEO's a very good reason to do everything they can to prove they are the best man for the job.

 

[Carmen813]

No offense, but that's a lot different from your original statement that the first two years are the same. Remembering back I took racquetball, backpacking, and literature as electives - I cannot recall any others. (Granted it's been thirty years.) The only place I encountered students in soft science or liberal arts majors was in those courses and a few in chemistry; they were taking little or no science and their math was pre-algabra, algabra, and "advanced math" which were all high school math. Their only science was biology and/or chemistry, only one of the two for liberal arts majors. There is a reason for the old joke that a liberal arts graduate says "you want fries with that?" and it is because a liberal arts graduate is qualified to do nothing except marry well or possibly teach liberal arts to others. Nothing against sociology in particular, but we have far too many sociology and philosophy and psychology graduates. Still, if counseling is what you really want to do, then it's good you dropped out of engineering, it's too much work to do just by default and you no doubt make a much better counselor. Whenever possible, people are better off doing what they enjoy even if they make less money.

I wouldn't deny that good psychotherapy is better than a small to moderate raise to eliminate "psychological distress", but the vast majority of people are not suffering from that and would benefit much more from a small to moderate raise than from psychotherapy, even good psychotherapy. Saying that psychotherapy can boost happiness more than money is misleading.

Hell, I used to openly mock liberal arts/psychology majors myself. What is a philosopher?
Unemployed.

No offense taken. I made a broader generalization than I intended. As I said, basic coursework was probably a better term than core curriculum. The purpose of degrees like psychology or sociology is to act as a "stepping stone". A typical high school education will not contain much useful information for someone who wants to become a professional counselor. A BA in psychology gives you the basic understanding of human behavior and theory that you need in order to become an effective counselor, social worker, or psychologist. Completing a BA (of any type) also requires a certain amount of maturing, which is why I wouldn't advocate teaching an 19 year old how to counsel someone.

I'm not sure it matters, because in the year I spent as an engineering intern, I didn't really directly utilize anything I learned. My jobs weren't "jokes" either, but it just didn't require the sophisticated coursework I had completed. Sure, it helped me indirectly in terms of how to approach problems...but I don't remember taking calculus outside the classroom. I could do both of those jobs today with my Psych degree.

In regards to the study, I didn't find the actual analysis or methodology so I can't really comment on its veracity. I will say that I think solid mental health is more beneficial than earning more money in terms of happiness. Whether or not $1,300 of therapy is worth $40,000 in actual pay I can't really say except to share an anecdote. My mother makes over 100,000k a year, and as far as I can tell, she is no happier than she was when she made less than 30. Her standard of living has certainly increased significantly, but...something else is lacking. As Craig alluded to above, for many people, there reaches a point where enough money is "enough." For me, I'm hoping to earn around $50,000 a year. The median salary for counselors is around 35k, but that number is probably artificially low due to the number of private practitioners. I could have made more as an engineer, but 35-50k is enough for me to live quite comfortably.

 

[Craig234]

Edit: Response to Legendkiller blasting his post removed because it seems to me he has some serious problem, and is incoherent, and so I'm cutting off this exchange.

 

[LegendKiller]

Yes, technically informed - analogous to the imbecile Ph.D who can tell you extreme detail in their area of expertise but who is at the savant level of idiocy in other areas like common sense.

I'm being clear in my statement that I'm not criticizing your clear strong technical knowledge of the financial industry, you are an idiot in bigger areas. You are still posting to me long after the welcome mat is gone.

You can tell me all day long some irrelevant detail of the market operations, but you are unwilling or unable to make a coherent argument about what you sloppily and lazily call 'populist bullshit'.

My post was simple. I said, as every credible expert I hear says, top industry people, Nobel Laureates in economics - Paul Krugman, Elizabeth Warren, Simon Johnson, Kevin Phillips, Galbraith, Matt Taibbi and other investigative reporters, and others, where any one of them has orders of magnitude better understanding that you do from the trenches of the big picture, what I said about the changed activities of Wall Street in recent years. All you can say is 'populist bullshit' and 'f****** toolbox' and other asinine name-calling in lieu of any actual substance.

Ironically, your own posts from the past would support my point, but here you are with your name-calling and wah wah the borrowers were irresponsible to blather as if you are rebutting my point.

Of course they were, duh. No one said otherwise. The topic isn't them. I could say more but you hardly deserve it. You need to shut up and stop being an ass so loudly until you get a clue.

You sound like you have lost it and are lashing out - which I gave you one freebie to do, who knows what stress you are under. You repeated it and repeated it and are not getting away with it.

Get off the computer and get a clue before you post again 'correcting' me for what I did not say and further make a fool of yourself in so doing.

Hey, look, fuckwit. I'm not the one arguing that ANY person who could use a mop deserves higher pay, especially in comparison to a banker, who, you know, actually has to be able to be pretty fucking good in a multitude of tasks, including complex financial analysis, legal work, relationship management, while maintaining an immense body of corporate, economic, financial, and legal knowledge.

Using that knowledge to create value in an economy creates far more value than some guy sweeping a floor. Not saying that sweeping a floor isn't valuable, but it is not as valuable as being able to float bonds for a company's expansion (making a new building for the janitor to sweep).

Furthermore, the market is the one that sets the pay of the janitor, not the banker, as you so stealthily tried to contend (those in "power"). It's funny that you go onto claim that "the man" is keeping the janitor down. Sure, it's about "the man" and NOT about the fact that what? Maybe 90% of the population could be janitors, but only 5% be bankers?

Naw, it couldn't be simple supply and demand, it's "the man" keeping those immensely skilled and qualified "value people" we call professional janitors from making higher earnings.

What are you, a communist? It's laughable that you can't even understand a simple concept like supply/demand of unskilled labor, yet you can prattle on about your vast knowledge in economics and finance, regurgitating populist bullshit from your academic economist cow-cud of the day.

You sit her claiming your massive body of knowledge, but it's all book knowledge, and fairy tale shit at that. Galbraith? Krugman? Are you kidding me? Go back to your academic book and let the people who actually DO add value work, because, doof, you ain't doing anything special here.

Taibbi might be able to write some decent exposes, but people who know more than he does can easily spot the errors from afar, which is why you believe what you do.

So, my little shitstain, you can worry about the big bad banker calling you names, and you can be a little wimp and cry how horrible it is. BUt when it comes down to it, your ideas are moronic and the closest you've been to the 'Street is when you tried to slick back your hair like Charlie Sheen before going to your undergraduate microeconomics class yesterday.

Now go sweep the floors.

 

[Ozoned]

Yes, technically informed - analogous to the imbecile Ph.D who can tell you extreme detail in their area of expertise but who is at the savant level of idiocy in other areas like common sense.

I'm being clear in my statement that I'm not criticizing your clear strong technical knowledge of the financial industry, you are an idiot in bigger areas. You are still posting to me long after the welcome mat is gone.

You can tell me all day long some irrelevant detail of the market operations, but you are unwilling or unable to make a coherent argument about what you sloppily and lazily call 'populist bullshit'.

My post was simple. I said, as every credible expert I hear says, top industry people, Nobel Laureates in economics - Paul Krugman, Elizabeth Warren, Simon Johnson, Kevin Phillips, Galbraith, Matt Taibbi and other investigative reporters, and others, where any one of them has orders of magnitude better understanding that you do from the trenches of the big picture, what I said about the changed activities of Wall Street in recent years. All you can say is 'populist bullshit' and 'f****** toolbox' and other asinine name-calling in lieu of any actual substance.

Ironically, your own posts from the past would support my point, but here you are with your name-calling and wah wah the borrowers were irresponsible to blather as if you are rebutting my point.

Of course they were, duh. No one said otherwise. The topic isn't them. I could say more but you hardly deserve it. You need to shut up and stop being an ass so loudly until you get a clue.

You sound like you have lost it and are lashing out - which I gave you one freebie to do, who knows what stress you are under. You repeated it and repeated it and are not getting away with it.

Get off the computer and get a clue before you post again 'correcting' me for what I did not say and further make a fool of yourself in so doing.

You seem very, very, very, very, very, very,,,,,, very defensive craig. What's up with that?????????????????????