Why Garbagemen Should Earn More Than Bankers

&gt; Nearly a century ago, economist John Maynard Keynes famously predicted that we would work fifteen-hour weeks by the year 2030<p>In 1930, when Keynes predicted the 15 hour work week, the average American earned $1,368&#x2F;year which is roughly $19,500&#x2F;year in todays dollars.<p>19500&#x2F;52 = $375&#x2F;week. In 1930, in manufacturing, the average person worked 50.6 hours per week. (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;eh.net&#x2F;encyclopedia&#x2F;hours-of-work-in-u-s-history&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;eh.net&#x2F;encyclopedia&#x2F;hours-of-work-in-u-s-history&#x2F;</a>). so about $7.50&#x2F;hour<p>In 2015 the average family income was $53657. 53657&#x2F;52 = $1031&#x2F;week But in 2015 the average person worked on average only 34.4 hours per week (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;11&#x2F;11&#x2F;chart-work-week-oecd&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;11&#x2F;11&#x2F;chart-work-week-oecd&#x2F;</a>) so just shy of $30&#x2F;hour.<p>If modern Americans were content living at the same level of consumption as their 1930&#x27;s counterparts they would only have to work 12.5 hours per week to earn that same $375 in purchasing power. Outdoing Keynes&#x27; prediction 15 years ahead of schedule.

My father told the story once of a secretary who told him &quot;my pay is a disgrace. Even garbage men get paid more than me!&quot; To which my father replied &quot;why don&#x27;t you quit and get a garbage man job?&quot; And the secretary says &quot;are you kidding? That&#x27;s a filthy, dirty job!&quot;

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;money.cnn.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;02&#x2F;24&#x2F;news&#x2F;economy&#x2F;trash-workers-high-pay&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;money.cnn.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;02&#x2F;24&#x2F;news&#x2F;economy&#x2F;trash-workers-h...</a><p>Some garbagemen do make $100000, more than some bankers (and some software engineers), as they rightly should, as described in this article.

Where is the money coming from, hmm? The author describes finance as a &quot;tax on the population&quot;, but how could such taxation possibly work? The HFT firms are taxing ordinary people&#x27;s retirement accounts by... undercutting the human market-makers, providing a much better service while employing fewer traders? Um, yeah.<p>No doubt there are inefficient companies - those with an excess of management (say) or some other kind of employees in &quot;bullshit jobs&quot; that aren&#x27;t adding value. That&#x27;s ok; those companies will be competed out of the marketplace. We&#x27;re already seeing plenty of SV companies experimenting with different management models, for example.<p>In some cases &quot;bullshit jobs&quot; are forced upon companies. If we have so many more lawyers than Japan, maybe we need to simplify or otherwise improve our legal system. Or maybe not - maybe the Japanese have a worse quality of life as a result - certainly I&#x27;ve heard complaints about e.g. the treatment of people who suffer serious injuries, or even the ability of small businesses to break into markets that are dominated by racketeers.<p>But in many cases, if a job really is &quot;bullshit&quot;, who is paying for it, and why? It&#x27;s not like banking isn&#x27;t competitive - you only have to look at the recent quarterly results to see how much effort the industry has put into cutting costs (much of which comes in the form of employing fewer people).

One of the most important jobs in a hospital, is the cleaner. To help prevent the spread of infections like MRSI, to help keep outbreaks of vomiting virus under control, and help reduce the number of admitted and post procedure patients dying as a direct result of infection acquired in the hospital itself.<p>And yet, they are treated as the lowest employees there, well, most are not even employees, outsourced three or four levels removed as a cost to be cut to the cheapest provider, damn the consequences.<p>Society has some warped views sometimes.

Garbagemen are paid from taxer money, bankers aren&#x27;t. If you don&#x27;t like bankers, don&#x27;t give them your money. Problem solved. I get more angry at people with cushy bullshit government jobs than at bankers.<p>The example of the Irish pubs seems to show that actually bankers do something of value. Otherwise anybody could have replaced them, instead it was Irish Pub owners because they had knowledge of their customers financial situation.

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

&gt; Some law firms even make a practice of buying up patents for products they have no intention of producing, purely to enable them to sue people for copyright infringement.<p><i>sigh</i> copyright != patent

A strike of HFT traders would actually make some news. HFT is in a fragile balance. Markets disturbance would be enormous.

I remember when they did this in Marseille a few years back and it didn&#x27;t take a week but just a few days before huge trash piles in the streets, set on fire by bored kids, got cleaned up by the army.

My grandfather recalled once how his Latin teacher told him the most important job in society is that of the garbage collector - how can it function properly if everywhere is piled high with waste?

The writer thinks of money as something people give to you, and so he&#x27;s never going to make much of it.<p>He&#x27;s totally right that no one would mourn a strike of lobbyists or high-frequency traders. But those guys aren&#x27;t waiting to be handed money--they&#x27;re actively finding ways to get it, for better or worse.

As someone who does not live in a high-density urban environment, I would rather keep my bank than my garbage man.<p>My waste is about half compostable and the other half, through a slight change in purchasing decisions, could easily consist solely of easily-burnable paper and cardboard.<p>Meanwhile, if I had noone to finance the purchase of my house or manage my retirement savings then I would be considerably worse off.

IMO this is wrong: Most any banker can become a garbageman. They are way overpaid, that&#x27;s why there is a lottery for the jobs. Is the reverse true?<p>Relying on strike time to tragedy is complete BS. As we saw in 2007&#x2F;8 when banker messed up the consequences are indeed harsh.<p>None of this works without gov putting its thumb on the scales. Where do you think the lack of innovation came from?

I wish there was a way to get rid of these bullshit jobs. Also, I wish there was a way to make entertainment business such as singing, acting, and sports much much less profitable.

If some people are getting paid highly without making a positive contribution to society, they are either: - Taking advantage of gullible customers or, - Exploiting loopholes in the system, as with HFT.<p>In the latter case, regulation should take care of these people.