
Too Many of America’s Smartest Waste Their Talents (2018) - jseliger
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-06-19/too-many-of-america-s-smartest-waste-their-talents
======
medium_burrito
If the cost of living wasn't so high, I suspect the smartest would choose to
do other things. For example, looking at JPL engineering salaries on
glassdoor, the median seems to be around $100k. That's just not enough if you
want to live in Pasadena comfortably, especially if you compare it with a
FAANG salary.

~~~
mycall
It's almost like the economy is doing exactly what it was setup to do: extract
as much money from the system as possible for the good of the share holders.
Overtime, the system starts to decay because of the initial goal.

------
LatteLazy
Everything in this article is wrong. The moment you question any of it, it
becomes obvious it’s nonsense. In America at least, elite university’s are
private so they don’t cost society. And even in state institutions, the amount
that state(s) contribute has been falling rapidly. The USA has a private
system run according to the whims of donors. You might think it “should” be a
meritocracy as part of a wider fair society. I might even agree. But that’s
not what it is. Complaining it’s bad at that when that isn’t what it’s for
is... not even wrong.

And that’s before we get to the thrust of the article...

Pfft.

~~~
IvyMike
To me, the core of the article is this:

> The upshot is that many of the country’s best and brightest are either
> exerting their talents trying to beat each other out in a zero-sum trading
> game, or exploiting legal and behavioral loopholes to part investors from
> their money.

A lot fo these graduates make a lot of money this way, and I don't blame
people who do it--but it does feel like a waste of talent and expertise.

~~~
LatteLazy
Full disclosure: I weirdly strongly agree. I work in finance but I'm a really
good teacher, I tutor, I did youth work before I turned 30, I hope to return
to it one day. I should be a (socially useful) teacher.,

That said, society has decided that teaching is worthless.

No one says that out loud. But it's 100% what we have decided as a society.
That decision has been in place since I was in school in the 90s. Its spanned
administrations, economic conditions, booms and busts.

If we gave a shit about education, we'd fund it. But we don't. Everyone agrees
its vitally important, until it's time to pay 1% more tax so a school can have
a working fire alarm.

I feel like the author is blaming macdonalds employees for the fact no one is
ordering salad. But on a national scale. Why not just be honest and say it:
people want Ez credit and low taxes and if their kids come home with lead
poisoning from the school paint, they're OK with that. We'll, not ok with it,
but not willing to pay a dime to prevent it...

Its not Harvards fault or the fault of the "best and brightest" that we don't
want the things we're meant to want.

Expecting the best and brightest to throw their lives away and work shitty
jobs because it would be nice is pretty fucking rich and cheap

~~~
leetcrew
the US already spends a tremendous amount of money on education. the overall
spending per-student is comparable to that of western european countries, and
poorer US cities tend to spend even more, interestingly enough. maybe people
don't want to spend 1% more because they just don't believe they'll get much
for it.

as for teacher salary, someone with a bachelor's and no other certifications
would start at around $50k in my (poor, east coast) city, which is roughly the
median household income. this is not much less than tech startups will offer
new CS grads in the area. city public school teachers can make over $100k by
the end of their careers. certainly not enough to live like a king, but that
puts them at about the 80th percentile for household income here. imo, that's
pretty good for a public employee.

~~~
triceratops
How do we square "teachers get paid pretty well actually" with "teachers have
to buy student supplies out of their own pocket"? Is this happening
simultaneously in the same school districts? Or is there a bimodal
distribution of resources to school districts?

------
ikeyany
I used to think Noah Smith's articles missed the bigger picture, but for the
last several years he has been right on the money.

Every student in a good school should read this before graduating.

~~~
stevenwliao
How does a student determine if a role produces real value?

~~~
ikeyany
_> The upshot is that many of the country’s best and brightest are either
exerting their talents trying to beat each other out in a zero-sum trading
game, or exploiting legal and behavioral loopholes to part investors from
their money._

This can be hard to tell from the outside, but there will always be a point
during your job where you truly understand what it is you're _actually_ being
paid to do. If this can be gleamed ahead of time from the experiences of
others in the industry, then more power to you.

------
LatteLazy
Edit: The article is here

[http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20180620000867](http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20180620000867)

Can't get outline working, anyone got a way past the pay wall?

~~~
kencausey
With μMatrix set to block everything but original HTML and Firefox's Reader
mode it appears that I get the entire text.

~~~
LatteLazy
Thanks, I’ll give that a whirl too...

------
linuxftw
Are these really "America's Smartest" or are these just the median college
student? Smartest, or self-selecting for those who like doing a large amount
of schoolwork?

Smart people choose the highest reward with the least degree of difficulty,
risk adjusted.

------
karmakaze
> it [America] then employs [...]

The choice is made my the graduates not the country (unless there's government
involvement) or companies. It's just capitalism doing it's thing.

If we want that to change we have to collectively value something other than
financial wealth more, after having some reasonably attainable amount that's
'enough'.

~~~
LatteLazy
If you have 200k in student loans and a choice between a 100k pa finance job
and a 30k pa teacher in an inner city school job, do you actually have a
choice or has society choose for you already?

I agree with your second paragraph but that's as true for tax payers setting
salaries for useful jobs as it is for would-be employees deciding between
offers...

~~~
karmakaze
Yes, many more than those two.

------
quantified
The unstated question is “what are the (compelling) incentives to change the
incentives”?

