9 ms·

If doctors don't earn much more than baristas, why would I even bother putting myself through the hell that is medical school, free or not? I could skip it all

If doctors don't earn much more than baristas, why would I even bother putting myself through the hell that is medical school, free or not? I could skip it all and make almost as much pulling espresso shots. It makes no sense.

IkmoIkmo 11y ago
So a couple of things. First, doctors make more, way more. I'm born and raised in Europe and while wage inequality is smaller, it's not equal. For example, for a GP here in the Netherlands about 30% are salaried and make between 60k and 80k or so. The rest are mostly independent (have their own (co) practice) and make between 100 and 150k. (all euros). Meanwhile a Barista makes about 20k. So there's definitely a significant gap here. The difference is that in the US the gap tends to be slightly bigger, and the tax slightly lower at the higher end of income. Another difference is that education is highly subsidised: my college received about 12k or so per year for my tuition, 10k straight from the government, and 2k from me, and I - and everyone else - got a 2k a year loan from the government which is turned into a 100% gift if you graduate. I use this gift to pay my remaining 2k tuition fees, so tuition is totally free. I still borrowed because studying full-time leaves me not enough time to work to pay for a little over $1k a month on rent, food, insurance etc. But that debt is very small and also provided by the government at currently about 1.5% (it's always very low, don't think it ever beats inflation). This basically creates an incentive to become a doctor, without a risk of lifetime crushing debt. It also creates an opportunity for people to choose what they love to do. Money plays a role, obviously, and this is how market inefficiencies are kept in check, but it's not the sole factor. Now being a doctor obviously sucks in terms of working pressure. But there's still plenty of incentive to become one, but not enough incentive to work 80 hours a week like you may see in the US where you want to make mad bank because if you don't your student debt will crush you. I dare say it brings a bit of life/work balance to doctors, of whom as I gather live a pretty stressed and shitty life professionally. You'll quickly find though that if indeed studying is cheap, if indeed you can make a living as a barista to fall back on, you may as well pursue what you actually like to do, and for most people that's not pulling espresso shots. A system like that makes quite a bit of sense. As for the barista making just 20k... it seems low but the cool thing about large parts of Europe is that it's very affordable on low wages. For example if I didn't have so much equity (more than 30k or so) I would get a roughly $300 subsidy from the state for my $1000 rent. My insurance is just $90 or so, but the state pays me $80 for it. Primary, secondary and tertiary education was all de facto free and I was able to study at some top institutions in the world (both here and North America and Asia, without paying more). As a starting entrepreneur I get tons of tax cuts and barely pay tax right now, and if I lose my job I don't get silly foodstamps, I get like 80% of what the Barista makes as long as I show I'm applying for jobs. Yet there's plenty of incentive for me to strife and do better, up to a certain (quite high) point when taxes scales are such that it makes little sense working more hours, but doing more productive or valuable work is still very rewarding, which results in a very decent work life balance, health etc. In short, while Europe is very far from perfect, and while some countries have an easy position (e.g. Norway, resource rich, or the Netherlands, small and manageable), there is this tendency of Europeans to look at the US and think 'wtf?' when it comes to social and economic equality, work life balance, wage gaps, taxes, healthcare insurance, food stamps etc, which seem to be very poorly designed in the US, despite a tremendous amount of economic and sociological wisdom produced by American academia that ostensibly goes unnoticed by policy makers.
pharke 11y ago
The same reason that I and a lot of other people on this site and elsewhere would still write software even if we weren't (relatively) highly compensated for it. Why would I want to stand behind an espresso bar all day making cups of coffee for other people? That's not something I personally find challenging or intellectually stimulating and so if given the choice between my current profession and that at the same rate of pay I'd happily stick with what I love. Hell, if the choice was barista or retrain as a physician for the same rate I'd take a stab at medicine even though it's only marginally interesting to me because it involves more of a chance of working on the types of problems I enjoy solving. On the flip side, I'm sure there are lots of people that find the coffee business more attractive than medicine. That's great, they should absolutely pursue that. The freedom for people to do the things that they truly enjoy as work is something that we should be promoting and finding better ways of enabling.
wicker 11y ago
... to have a positive impact on people's lives? To potentially go into research and contribute to the greater body of human knowledge about how our bodies and minds work? Did I miss an /s tag? For some people, and that includes a lot of people working in disruptive startups, there's more to life than just making a lot of money and living well on an individual level.
kedean 11y ago
In a system like that, you would have fewer doctors yes, but the ones you have would be the ones who actually want to BE doctors. In the US you have a huge group who couldn't afford med school but really want to save lives as a doctor. Under that system, they could do it. I'd be entirely ok if everyone in the medical profession was there out of passion instead of for the money. The jobs you'll have trouble filling are the ones that are shitty but get paid big bucks in the US, like oil field workers. Those guys are there entirely for the nice paycheck.
- girvo 11y ago
  Hey, while working in mining as a labourer or other hands-on-tools job may be physically taxing and miserable in some sense (hence the large paycheque), it's enjoyable in its own right. My father works as a civil engineer out in mining towns here in Australia, both for the money and because he loves his job as much as I do mine. It's not all ruthless money-grabbing :)
  - kedean 11y ago
    Of course, but most people out there got into it because of the money or because there's nothing else for them. It's not a job where a new entrant to the workforce will think "yeah I think I'll do that for a living". Same with waste management jobs, etc. More standard vocational jobs like electricians would be separate, as its more 'desirable' and 'cool' from a young age, at least among some. I'd also argue that a civil engineer is an entirely different beast from the actual laborers, who I was referring to. My understanding of a CE in that scenario is more of a planning and overseeing role (correct me if I'm wrong about that).
    - girvo 11y ago
      > I'd also argue that a civil engineer is an entirely different beast from the actual laborers, who I was referring to. My understanding of a CE in that scenario is more of a planning and overseeing role (correct me if I'm wrong about that). You'd ordinarily be right, but as an interesting quirk of how things are run out where my Father is he's down in the trenches with the rest of them :)
mixmastamyk 11y ago
Because you're "passionate" about it, and making coffee gets boring.
- fixxer 11y ago
  I don't care how hipster you are, making coffee requires a lot less intelligence than brain surgery. That intelligence should be compensated.
  - inflagranti 11y ago
    You mean like physical ability is ridiculously overcompensated in sports? Yeah we really need to make sure to foster those people with obviously better genetics and weed out the inferior ones...
    - fixxer 11y ago
      Sports pay baffles me as well, but Lebron can make a cup of coffee.
  - psykovsky 11y ago
    So much entitlement and prejudice in 2 sentences.
    - fixxer 11y ago
      So much idiocy in one.
  - lectrick 11y ago
    The fallacies here are multiple: 1) the assumption that intelligence can actually be measured (in which case it's really just "analytical intelligence"), 2) the assumption that other types of intelligence are less important, 3) the fact that you can't even measure creativity, period. I have a 148 IQ (and I'm a programmer- of COURSE I have high analytical intelligence) and I have been consistently humbled by the "less intelligent."
HarryHirsch 11y ago
What's with all this reasoning without data? It isn't scientific. You could do some actual field science and ask a physician in a Nordic country why they chose to go to medical school. Whatever their reasons, the system works for them; there are no reports of doctor shortages in Denmark.
Frondo 11y ago
Because you want to be a doctor, and use medicine to prolong and improve people's lives? Do you really value money that much, that it would guide major life decisions (like how you spend your life)?
- psykovsky 11y ago
  Of course he values money. And so do you. I can tell because of the site where you're making these comments.
  - wordbank 11y ago
    Wrong. I'd like to get a cut of the huge tech capitals cake to convert it into charity.
    - psykovsky 11y ago
      That is only possible because you value money.
  - zxexz 11y ago
    Because he's commenting on HN he 'values money'? Why do people on HN specifically value money more than people on another site? As far as I can tell the only common denominator for this site traitwise is valuing interesting stories.
    - everyone 11y ago
      Yeah not all HN readers are yuppies
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- stegosaurus 11y ago
  The basic concept he is probably missing is that when a _real_ safety net exists, money is less desirable. If I am backstopped by a home and food near my family and they are too, I won't be as motivated by riches. The entire reason I even need money is to buy a home and to build retirement funds... anything else is a toy (and in Western countries is probably trivially cheap compared to housing). What that means is that I have much more freedom to do whatever I want to do. If I want to be a bin man or a doctor or a truck driver or a car salesman... whatever; I have much more autonomy to follow my dreams in a system that does not mean I live paycheck to paycheck doing half of those jobs. Right now, I don't have a home, and so it is basically irrational (given that I don't want to be nomadic and leave my family behind) for me to take lower paying jobs ever. This is really a stupid situation to be in; it means that capitalism almost decides what I spend my entire life doing without me having that much free choice (choosing to be poor is not a valid choice).
codexon 11y ago
I have heard that in other places outside the US, medical school is not hell, and it was made that way by the AMA which enforces a monopoly on how many MDs schools are allowed to graduate each year. Whether or not this means doctors educated in the US are superior and make fewer mistakes than those that are not, I do not know.
- barry-cotter 11y ago
  I only know about Ireland, the UK and Germany. All of them have undergraduate medical schools and they're all really, really hard. But the competition to get in is intense enough and meritocratic enough that if you did get in you are fully capable of passing absent the emergence of mental health problems. The intern year is pure hell everywhere as far as I know but that's after you graduate even you want to qualify as a doctor. A year when working a mere 60 hours basically qualifies as a week off and people commiserate over the length of time they've gone without sleep.
  - ZeroGravitas 11y ago
    I've never found a reasonable explanation of why these long student-doctor hours are a) necessary or b) desirable. I've always put it down to the same thing as the parent, doctor's union's intentionally restricting supply to benefit their members at a great cost to society. Far more of the job could be done by nurses (or a computer), and given the choice between an experienced nurse and a tired and inexperienced doctor, I think the nurse may well win.
    - barry-cotter 11y ago
      If you can do your intern year you can do anything and you learn a great deal in that year. Doctors are legally responsible in ways that nurses aren't and compared to the average doctor the average nurse is an idiot.Then again given the choice between a nurse practitioner and a doctor who's been at work for sixteen hours who just qualified I'd take the np. All that said outside surgery the hours appear to be mostly hazing. Between lessened fatigue and poorer continuity of care reducing doctors' hours is a wash when analysing fatalities and medical errors. This does not hold for surgery. Reducing intern's working hours clearly results in more patient deaths in surgery. Feel free to check on google scholar.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
6d0debc071 11y ago
Physicians per 10,000 population: Sweden 38.7 Iceland 34.6 Denmark 34.2 Finland 29.1 United Kingdom 27.7 United States of America 24.2 http://kff.org/global-indicator/physicians/ http://kff.org/global-indicator/physicians/ (You can click the boxes in the panel on the left to generate easy comparisons) Data supposedly taken from WHO stats: http://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/2013/en/ http://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/...
sampo 11y ago
> * I could skip it all and make almost as much pulling espresso shots.* If your calling in life is to pull espresso shots, I think you should pull espresso shots.
- fixxer 11y ago
  You're missing the point. The statement relates to investment of time and reward for that investment. If an investment of many years results in a salary equivalent to that of a clerk or barista, then the system does not value individual effort or intelligence and is thus inefficient. This is a valid argument against socialist economies and one that progressives here in the States are really uncomfortable with. I have been to Cuba and I met a cardiologist who made the same as the local fish monger. Rediculous. Fuck everyone who wants to correct the ills of this country by forcing that asinine logic upon us.
  - ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
    You're assuming that people like this models from an Econ 101 textbook.
    - greedo 11y ago
      Capitalism isn't perfect, but it is very efficient at determining value. The value of work is largely based on difficulty; the more difficult a skill, the more it pays. The higher pay attracts more people capable of mastering that skill, thus earning the higher pay. If you simply say everyone should make the same regardless of skill, then you diminish the value of both the skill, and the effort used to master the skill.
      - pnut 11y ago
        I'm inclined to agree with you, except for the massive, glaring exception of inherited wealth/passive income. If you're just talking about the peons trading labor for money, then yes, more or less. But there's another class of folks, and my anecdotal evidence is that they're freaking everywhere, overflowing with unearned wealth. I'm nobody from nowhere and I know many of these people, and they'd be screwed if they had to go through what I have. The veneer of meritocratic capitalism in America should be at the breaking point IMO. But this is a vulgar place so I'm probably wrong.
sjg007 11y ago
Foreign doctors get trained for free and then move to the US. We have a shortage here anyway.
barry-cotter 11y ago
Who cares about money, what about what's really important in life? What about social status? A principal of a high school makes more than most tenured professors. Why would anybody want to go through a Ph.D., job hunt and seven years of working like a dog in the hope of getting tenure when they could do an M.Ed. (laughably easy for anyone sane contemplating a doctorate) and have job security three years post qualification?
Gustomaximus 11y ago
I'd argue his would create better doctors by encouraging people who have a calling for the vocation, not just the higher pay check. Also, something I noticed while living in Norway for a few years, it's much more common to make big career changes mid life. Their system is quite supportive of this and allows you to maintain a reasonable lifestyle while you do. It's a really good system IMO.
msabalau 11y ago
Given that there are more doctors per capita in each of the Nordic countries than there are in the US, the holding onto a mental model that can't make sense of this would seem to be problematic.

IkmoIkmo 11y ago

So a couple of things. First, doctors make more, way more. I'm born and raised in Europe and while wage inequality is smaller, it's not equal. For example, for a GP here in the Netherlands about 30% are salaried and make between 60k and 80k or so. The rest are mostly independent (have their own (co) practice) and make between 100 and 150k. (all euros). Meanwhile a Barista makes about 20k. So there's definitely a significant gap here. The difference is that in the US the gap tends to be slightly bigger, and the tax slightly lower at the higher end of income. Another difference is that education is highly subsidised: my college received about 12k or so per year for my tuition, 10k straight from the government, and 2k from me, and I - and everyone else - got a 2k a year loan from the government which is turned into a 100% gift if you graduate. I use this gift to pay my remaining 2k tuition fees, so tuition is totally free. I still borrowed because studying full-time leaves me not enough time to work to pay for a little over $1k a month on rent, food, insurance etc. But that debt is very small and also provided by the government at currently about 1.5% (it's always very low, don't think it ever beats inflation). This basically creates an incentive to become a doctor, without a risk of lifetime crushing debt. It also creates an opportunity for people to choose what they love to do. Money plays a role, obviously, and this is how market inefficiencies are kept in check, but it's not the sole factor. Now being a doctor obviously sucks in terms of working pressure. But there's still plenty of incentive to become one, but not enough incentive to work 80 hours a week like you may see in the US where you want to make mad bank because if you don't your student debt will crush you. I dare say it brings a bit of life/work balance to doctors, of whom as I gather live a pretty stressed and shitty life professionally. You'll quickly find though that if indeed studying is cheap, if indeed you can make a living as a barista to fall back on, you may as well pursue what you actually like to do, and for most people that's not pulling espresso shots. A system like that makes quite a bit of sense. As for the barista making just 20k... it seems low but the cool thing about large parts of Europe is that it's very affordable on low wages. For example if I didn't have so much equity (more than 30k or so) I would get a roughly $300 subsidy from the state for my $1000 rent. My insurance is just $90 or so, but the state pays me $80 for it. Primary, secondary and tertiary education was all de facto free and I was able to study at some top institutions in the world (both here and North America and Asia, without paying more). As a starting entrepreneur I get tons of tax cuts and barely pay tax right now, and if I lose my job I don't get silly foodstamps, I get like 80% of what the Barista makes as long as I show I'm applying for jobs. Yet there's plenty of incentive for me to strife and do better, up to a certain (quite high) point when taxes scales are such that it makes little sense working more hours, but doing more productive or valuable work is still very rewarding, which results in a very decent work life balance, health etc. In short, while Europe is very far from perfect, and while some countries have an easy position (e.g. Norway, resource rich, or the Netherlands, small and manageable), there is this tendency of Europeans to look at the US and think 'wtf?' when it comes to social and economic equality, work life balance, wage gaps, taxes, healthcare insurance, food stamps etc, which seem to be very poorly designed in the US, despite a tremendous amount of economic and sociological wisdom produced by American academia that ostensibly goes unnoticed by policy makers.

pharke 11y ago

The same reason that I and a lot of other people on this site and elsewhere would still write software even if we weren't (relatively) highly compensated for it. Why would I want to stand behind an espresso bar all day making cups of coffee for other people? That's not something I personally find challenging or intellectually stimulating and so if given the choice between my current profession and that at the same rate of pay I'd happily stick with what I love. Hell, if the choice was barista or retrain as a physician for the same rate I'd take a stab at medicine even though it's only marginally interesting to me because it involves more of a chance of working on the types of problems I enjoy solving. On the flip side, I'm sure there are lots of people that find the coffee business more attractive than medicine. That's great, they should absolutely pursue that. The freedom for people to do the things that they truly enjoy as work is something that we should be promoting and finding better ways of enabling.

wicker 11y ago

... to have a positive impact on people's lives? To potentially go into research and contribute to the greater body of human knowledge about how our bodies and minds work? Did I miss an /s tag? For some people, and that includes a lot of people working in disruptive startups, there's more to life than just making a lot of money and living well on an individual level.

kedean 11y ago

In a system like that, you would have fewer doctors yes, but the ones you have would be the ones who actually want to BE doctors. In the US you have a huge group who couldn't afford med school but really want to save lives as a doctor. Under that system, they could do it. I'd be entirely ok if everyone in the medical profession was there out of passion instead of for the money. The jobs you'll have trouble filling are the ones that are shitty but get paid big bucks in the US, like oil field workers. Those guys are there entirely for the nice paycheck.

girvo 11y ago
Hey, while working in mining as a labourer or other hands-on-tools job may be physically taxing and miserable in some sense (hence the large paycheque), it's enjoyable in its own right. My father works as a civil engineer out in mining towns here in Australia, both for the money and because he loves his job as much as I do mine. It's not all ruthless money-grabbing :)
- kedean 11y ago
  Of course, but most people out there got into it because of the money or because there's nothing else for them. It's not a job where a new entrant to the workforce will think "yeah I think I'll do that for a living". Same with waste management jobs, etc. More standard vocational jobs like electricians would be separate, as its more 'desirable' and 'cool' from a young age, at least among some. I'd also argue that a civil engineer is an entirely different beast from the actual laborers, who I was referring to. My understanding of a CE in that scenario is more of a planning and overseeing role (correct me if I'm wrong about that).
  - girvo 11y ago
    > I'd also argue that a civil engineer is an entirely different beast from the actual laborers, who I was referring to. My understanding of a CE in that scenario is more of a planning and overseeing role (correct me if I'm wrong about that). You'd ordinarily be right, but as an interesting quirk of how things are run out where my Father is he's down in the trenches with the rest of them :)

mixmastamyk 11y ago

Because you're "passionate" about it, and making coffee gets boring.

fixxer 11y ago
I don't care how hipster you are, making coffee requires a lot less intelligence than brain surgery. That intelligence should be compensated.
- inflagranti 11y ago
  You mean like physical ability is ridiculously overcompensated in sports? Yeah we really need to make sure to foster those people with obviously better genetics and weed out the inferior ones...
  - fixxer 11y ago
    Sports pay baffles me as well, but Lebron can make a cup of coffee.
- psykovsky 11y ago
  So much entitlement and prejudice in 2 sentences.
  - fixxer 11y ago
    So much idiocy in one.
- lectrick 11y ago
  The fallacies here are multiple: 1) the assumption that intelligence can actually be measured (in which case it's really just "analytical intelligence"), 2) the assumption that other types of intelligence are less important, 3) the fact that you can't even measure creativity, period. I have a 148 IQ (and I'm a programmer- of COURSE I have high analytical intelligence) and I have been consistently humbled by the "less intelligent."

HarryHirsch 11y ago

What's with all this reasoning without data? It isn't scientific. You could do some actual field science and ask a physician in a Nordic country why they chose to go to medical school. Whatever their reasons, the system works for them; there are no reports of doctor shortages in Denmark.

Frondo 11y ago

Because you want to be a doctor, and use medicine to prolong and improve people's lives? Do you really value money that much, that it would guide major life decisions (like how you spend your life)?

psykovsky 11y ago
Of course he values money. And so do you. I can tell because of the site where you're making these comments.
- wordbank 11y ago
  Wrong. I'd like to get a cut of the huge tech capitals cake to convert it into charity.
  - psykovsky 11y ago
    That is only possible because you value money.
- zxexz 11y ago
  Because he's commenting on HN he 'values money'? Why do people on HN specifically value money more than people on another site? As far as I can tell the only common denominator for this site traitwise is valuing interesting stories.
  - everyone 11y ago
    Yeah not all HN readers are yuppies
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
stegosaurus 11y ago
The basic concept he is probably missing is that when a _real_ safety net exists, money is less desirable. If I am backstopped by a home and food near my family and they are too, I won't be as motivated by riches. The entire reason I even need money is to buy a home and to build retirement funds... anything else is a toy (and in Western countries is probably trivially cheap compared to housing). What that means is that I have much more freedom to do whatever I want to do. If I want to be a bin man or a doctor or a truck driver or a car salesman... whatever; I have much more autonomy to follow my dreams in a system that does not mean I live paycheck to paycheck doing half of those jobs. Right now, I don't have a home, and so it is basically irrational (given that I don't want to be nomadic and leave my family behind) for me to take lower paying jobs ever. This is really a stupid situation to be in; it means that capitalism almost decides what I spend my entire life doing without me having that much free choice (choosing to be poor is not a valid choice).

codexon 11y ago

I have heard that in other places outside the US, medical school is not hell, and it was made that way by the AMA which enforces a monopoly on how many MDs schools are allowed to graduate each year. Whether or not this means doctors educated in the US are superior and make fewer mistakes than those that are not, I do not know.

barry-cotter 11y ago
I only know about Ireland, the UK and Germany. All of them have undergraduate medical schools and they're all really, really hard. But the competition to get in is intense enough and meritocratic enough that if you did get in you are fully capable of passing absent the emergence of mental health problems. The intern year is pure hell everywhere as far as I know but that's after you graduate even you want to qualify as a doctor. A year when working a mere 60 hours basically qualifies as a week off and people commiserate over the length of time they've gone without sleep.
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  I've never found a reasonable explanation of why these long student-doctor hours are a) necessary or b) desirable. I've always put it down to the same thing as the parent, doctor's union's intentionally restricting supply to benefit their members at a great cost to society. Far more of the job could be done by nurses (or a computer), and given the choice between an experienced nurse and a tired and inexperienced doctor, I think the nurse may well win.
  - barry-cotter 11y ago
    If you can do your intern year you can do anything and you learn a great deal in that year. Doctors are legally responsible in ways that nurses aren't and compared to the average doctor the average nurse is an idiot.Then again given the choice between a nurse practitioner and a doctor who's been at work for sixteen hours who just qualified I'd take the np. All that said outside surgery the hours appear to be mostly hazing. Between lessened fatigue and poorer continuity of care reducing doctors' hours is a wash when analysing fatalities and medical errors. This does not hold for surgery. Reducing intern's working hours clearly results in more patient deaths in surgery. Feel free to check on google scholar.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

6d0debc071 11y ago

Physicians per 10,000 population: Sweden 38.7 Iceland 34.6 Denmark 34.2 Finland 29.1 United Kingdom 27.7 United States of America 24.2 http://kff.org/global-indicator/physicians/ http://kff.org/global-indicator/physicians/ (You can click the boxes in the panel on the left to generate easy comparisons) Data supposedly taken from WHO stats: http://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/2013/en/ http://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/...

sampo 11y ago

> * I could skip it all and make almost as much pulling espresso shots.* If your calling in life is to pull espresso shots, I think you should pull espresso shots.

fixxer 11y ago
You're missing the point. The statement relates to investment of time and reward for that investment. If an investment of many years results in a salary equivalent to that of a clerk or barista, then the system does not value individual effort or intelligence and is thus inefficient. This is a valid argument against socialist economies and one that progressives here in the States are really uncomfortable with. I have been to Cuba and I met a cardiologist who made the same as the local fish monger. Rediculous. Fuck everyone who wants to correct the ills of this country by forcing that asinine logic upon us.
- ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
  You're assuming that people like this models from an Econ 101 textbook.
  - greedo 11y ago
    Capitalism isn't perfect, but it is very efficient at determining value. The value of work is largely based on difficulty; the more difficult a skill, the more it pays. The higher pay attracts more people capable of mastering that skill, thus earning the higher pay. If you simply say everyone should make the same regardless of skill, then you diminish the value of both the skill, and the effort used to master the skill.
    - pnut 11y ago
      I'm inclined to agree with you, except for the massive, glaring exception of inherited wealth/passive income. If you're just talking about the peons trading labor for money, then yes, more or less. But there's another class of folks, and my anecdotal evidence is that they're freaking everywhere, overflowing with unearned wealth. I'm nobody from nowhere and I know many of these people, and they'd be screwed if they had to go through what I have. The veneer of meritocratic capitalism in America should be at the breaking point IMO. But this is a vulgar place so I'm probably wrong.

sjg007 11y ago

Foreign doctors get trained for free and then move to the US. We have a shortage here anyway.

barry-cotter 11y ago

Who cares about money, what about what's really important in life? What about social status? A principal of a high school makes more than most tenured professors. Why would anybody want to go through a Ph.D., job hunt and seven years of working like a dog in the hope of getting tenure when they could do an M.Ed. (laughably easy for anyone sane contemplating a doctorate) and have job security three years post qualification?

Gustomaximus 11y ago

I'd argue his would create better doctors by encouraging people who have a calling for the vocation, not just the higher pay check. Also, something I noticed while living in Norway for a few years, it's much more common to make big career changes mid life. Their system is quite supportive of this and allows you to maintain a reasonable lifestyle while you do. It's a really good system IMO.

msabalau 11y ago

Given that there are more doctors per capita in each of the Nordic countries than there are in the US, the holding onto a mental model that can't make sense of this would seem to be problematic.