Cleaners 'worth more to society' than bankers -- study

[ima_sinnic]

Source: BBC News

Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, a study suggests.

The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation, says hospital cleaners create £10 of value for every £1 they are paid.

It claims bankers are a drain on the country because of the damage they caused to the global economy.

They reportedly destroy £7 of value for every £1 they earn. Meanwhile, senior advertising executives are said to "create stress". The study says they are responsible for campaigns which create dissatisfaction and misery, and encourage over-consumption.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8410489.stm?lsf

---

I encourage clicking on the story as there are some fascinating findings here that support notions of worth beyond pure wages. We need a LOT more research like this as it highlights what people believe to be truly important. It could be important in shaping REAL change.

[Delphinus]

1. Very interesting.

I'd love to see it get some M$M airing here in the US.

[Vermontgrown]

40. Suspecting

I'm sure most people have known these facts all along. These jerks walk around thinking they're better than everyone else and the opposite is the truth.

[Crzyrussell]

99. There are no facts here.

This is nothing but a subjective report. And an excuse to denigrate white collar workers.

[mbperrin]

My dad always maintained that to become a manager, you had to wear

a tie. Worn properly, it cuts off all the oxygen to the brain, rendering a perfect management type.

Fact: in 41 years of workplace experience, I never saw a business that couldn't have been improved by simply eliminating most, and in many cases, all of the white collar contingent.

Manager makes dumb decision to market a certain product, sales can't sell it. Who gets laid off? Yep, folks on the line. Manager is allowed to hire even more sales types and buy more advertising to try to make his moronic decision work.

[Crzyrussell]

103. Who is going to do

payroll? Ensure OSHA compliance? Procure and supply materials needed for blue collar workers? Who is going to bid on projects?

[mbperrin]

105. Well, I did all those things as well as all the work for 20 years, so I

guess it will be me. Scale your business into a niche to fit your labor force of one, and you'll do all right.

I wore out my shoulders, though, so now I teach and have rental property as well. Again, I do all the advertising, all the repair and maintenance, take the applications, pick up the rents, keep the peace, and we do all right.

Those middlemen will suck the life out of your company.

[Greyhound]

122. You sound like the guys that taught me business.

All extremely wealthy, all knew their business inside-out, and not one diploma between them.

[Crzyrussell]

104. Who is going to manage

the union contracts and retirement plans?

The tooth fairy?

[mbperrin]

107. What union? I was self employed. I run my own retirement plan.

In 6 years, I'll draw teacher retirement and Social Security, as well as continue to have rental income. We'll retire at about 85% of our current income with no debt of any kind.

OK?

[Crzyrussell]

111. I was referring to the average

blue collar worker, which according to this thread are the only worthwhile workers around.

The rest of us are a "waste of resources".

[mbperrin]

117. I am an average blue collar worker. I live in a right to work state, in

the 232 out of 254 counties average income; my parents were 8th grade dropouts; I was the first person in my family to attend college. All of my ancestors were blue collar: farmers, mechanics, carpenters, paint and body, concrete finishers, roughnecks and roustabouts.

I was taught from an early age that no one would ever be more interested in my and my family's wellbeing than I am, and so I should ensure my family's wellbeing. Middlemen are simply sponges living off the labor of others.

I took it to heart. Like any average kid getting advice from his family.

[ima_sinnic]

125. who says management jobs should be ELIMINATED?

you sound quite threatened by the article, and you shouldn't be.

[customerserviceguy]

127. That's a good point

Yes, it's fun when something like this comes out about bankers, but if the same people tried to make such comparisions between various forms of, say, construction workers, I have no doubts that most here would take extreme exception with it.

[dysfunctional press]

2. without the garbagemen, a city wouldn't survive very well for too long.

but- it also takes less skill/education than most white-collar jobs.
therefore- just about anyone can do it.
and so- there will almost always be someone who's 'qualified' willing to do it for less money.

[happyslug]

21. Garbageman have less "skills" then white collar workers?

Sorry, if you actually see Garbage men at work you will see a lot of skills being used. This include driving the Truck, loading the truck, determine when it is full. The time of the year affect these decision, i.e. is the garbageman main concern Snow and Ice or Maggots? Quick review of the situation on a daily basis is needed, are the roads to slick so you have to be more careful when the truck is empty? Do you have to cut off collection do to the roads being to wet/dry/icy for the load on the truck. One skill the garbage men learn is how to deal with people who often expect the impossible from them (I.e. want their garbage picked up, but NOT before the Garbage is put on the curb BUT also do not want the trucks to disturb their sleep). Another skill Garbage men learn to deal with is basic sanitation, not only of themselves but their vehicles and even the garbage they haul away (And I am NOT going into the Federal and State Regulations such garbage men must follow and to do so must at least know such regulations to make sure they are in compliance with said regulations).

Yes, most of these skills are learned on the job as oppose to the Classroom (as are most skills for White Collar workers) but they are still skilled. I always liked the comment of what type of person made the best infantrymen? The answer was a person with above average intelligence, with good to excellent mechanical aptitude and above average education. i.e. the same type of person every other part of the Military service wanted. Why? Because such people are the quickest to teach on the job AND can adjust to changes on the job easier then other people. The same with Garbage men, the best Garbage men are those people with average intelligence, with good to excellent mechanical aptitude and above average education, the same aptitude as white collar workers. Why? for the same reason White Collar workers are paid higher then other workers, such people can adjust to changes in the work place, handle Changes on a daily basis and still get they job done.

My point is that while most Garbage men have less education then White Collar Workers, to say they have less Skills is a completely different story. Most Garbage men have skills, learned on the job and are constantly handle changes (Closed roads, new Customers, old customer who left, sanitation regulations, what can be picked up and what can NOT be picked up by them etc). These are skills, mostly learned on the job, but still skills. As a whole such garbage men have more skills then workers with advance degrees let alone a collage degree. Thus a blanket statement that such jobs require less skills is NOT correct, just that we value such skills less then we value skills learned in Collage (and that is a valuation issue NOT a skill or even Education issue).

[caraher]

35. "skill" is a slippery word

Kind of like "intelligence," it is frequently code for something more complex.

In an entirely different context, I always chuckle when sports commentators refer to football positions like, quarterback and receiver as "skill" positions - as if playing the line on either side of the ball didn't also involve a whole intricate set of skills. In that case, "skill position" really means something more like ball-handling, or likely to be on highlight reels...

[dysfunctional press]

42. they are 'skills' that anyone can master in an extremely short time.

not so with most white collar jobs.

one reason that 'the best Garbage men are those people with average intelligence' is that someone with above average intelligence wouldn't find much job satisfaction, and before long, quit & move on to something else(in normal times, when jobs are available, obviously). and from my experience- and judging by the conversations i've had with some of them- the people who walk down the alleys with the trucks(that's what they do in chicago) hooking the cans up to the lift, aren't exactly of what i would call 'average' intelligence. at least i hope not- or this country is in even bigger trouble than it seems.

[geckosfeet]

78. Right. Elitist snobbery much? Or just for garbagemen?

[dysfunctional press]

82. :yawn:

:eyes:

[readmoreoften]

86. The ability to manipulate and defraud are skills--but skills with no social value.

The difficulty of a skill is not relative to its social worth.

[dysfunctional press]

87. i never said it was.

my original subject line even points that out.

but that isn't what determines how much a job pays, is it?

and not all white-collar workers "manipulate and defraud" just as not all garbagemen are worthless drunkards.

[Cherchez la Femme]

97. Pfft

A friend in Mensa works in trash disposal.

She gets paid well, drives a Corvette (her summer car), works a touch over 6 hours a day with all holidays off, has excellent benefits, vacation, etc. including pension (government, so it's guaranteed), a good union, has job security, opportunity for advancement (yes, management), can retire after 12-14 years if she wishes.
She gets to work outside and she is fit.
She's home by 3 p.m. summer afternoons, sitting by her pool reading everything from history tomes to poetry to philosophy ad infinitum. Her library makes me drool, including some fantastic first editions.
She has the time to volunteer at both homeless shelters and teaching the illiterate to read.
Oh, and she helps the elderly.

She has a baccalaureate, same as I.

She did a couple years doing the office thing and taking all kinds of civil service exams; told me that she weighed the pay, hours and benefits compared with working in an office, and most importantly the stress (or lack of) and this job won hands down.
Job title didn't matter, the bottom line and her quality of life did.

I couldn't do it, sadly. 'Pride', ya know.
Stupidity, more like.
Yet she's stayed at the same job for years with steady wage increases while I've seen too many cubicles and layoff's and downsizing than I'd ever like to admit; although my job title's have been something I could say 'with pride'.
Proclaiming them all the way to the unemployment line. :eyes:

It can be unpleasant at times (but what job isn't?), she admits that... but she also told me 'I'm washable'.


So who's got/has had the better job?
Who made a wiser career decision?


I wish I had taken her path... maybe I'd have a Corvette and a few less wrinkles
er, smile lines (Yeah right)


Bah, snobs
judging people by their means of paying the bills/earning their living instead of who they really are

[dysfunctional press]

101. the exception that proves the rule...

thanks. :hi:

[Cherchez la Femme]

106. I don't think it is an exception

There are all kinds of people in every kind of job. Smart ones in 'laborer' positions, dumb ones in 'white collar'.

Proved nothing.

[dysfunctional press]

110. yes- there are all kinds of people in all kinds of jobs....

but the majority of blue collar workers are much less educated than the majority of white collar workers.

this IS the real world, after all.

[Cherchez la Femme]

116. You weren't talking about Education

You specifically cited Intelligence

In this world,
more correctly this country of exorbitant college tuition, fees & books many smart people have no degree.

[dysfunctional press]

128. education is how one builds on their intelligence.

if someone wants to let their mind wither in a mindless position- that's certainly their prerogative.

[geckosfeet]

132. Your elitism is showing again. Quick - hide it with some edumacation.

[geckosfeet]

130. Whatever in the world that nonsense means.

Classic suit double speak.

[LanternWaste]

38. Which may be said of any profession.

"there will almost always be someone who's 'qualified' willing to do it for less money..."

Which may be said of any and all professions.

[dysfunctional press]

39. not really.

the key word being "qualified".

[LanternWaste]

67. self delete

self delete

[LooseWilly]

89. I think the key word you're looking for is "connected".

I don't for a second think that bankers, at lower or higher levels of the business, are all that much more skilled than garbagemen. Nor necessarily much smarter. What they tend to be is better "connected" to other bankers (or garbagemen).

If I were to apply for either job right now, without any connections, my resume wouldn't get a second glance. If I were to apply for either, and someone in the office were to "vouch for me", I could probably get either job... and I would probably be as good as anyone else on the job within a few months, once I've gotten the "hang of it".

[dysfunctional press]

94. lots of garbagemen get their jobs thru 'connections' as well.

if it would take you a few months to learn how to be a garbageman- you wouldn't stand a chance in many or most white-collar jobs.

[LooseWilly]

123. That's what I said... garbagemen and self-righteous white collar workers alike use connections.

And the notion that garbagemen don't need time to learn the job is ridiculous. And the judgement that someone who acknowledges that fact isn't qualified for a white collar job is laughable. White collar self-centered self-righteousness.

Just because I have a BA from UC Berkeley doesn't mean that I don't acknowledge that there are a lot of on the job details to learn for garbagemen... and it likewise doesn't mean that that acknowledgement means I am not qualified for a white collar job.

Your class prejudices are amusing to listen to (read) though. Thanks for the laugh.

[dysfunctional press]

129. if you really think that the 'skills' that need to be learned to be a garbageman

are comparable to the skills that need to be learned on most white-collar jobs-
then there's really no point in taking this any further.

[Lucky Luciano]

108. connections will not get you s front office job in finance if you

cannot pass the grilling you get in the interview - trust me on that. A lot of people get interviews because of a friend (usually a friend they worked with in the industry in the past) - it only gets the interview though. The person will stil be grilled. If you are absolutely starting out, then an internship makes it literally 10 times easier to get a job (ie 90% of people who get front offcie jobs in finance interned).

[LooseWilly]

124. Internships: slave labor for white collar industries.

At least, that's how it felt when I was freshly graduated from college.

Enough to make a cynic suspect that getting a finance job, or almost any white collar job, requires that one be affluent enough and family supported enough to be able to afford 6 months (at the very least) of working in an office for free... in order to "qualify" for an entry level position.

All well and nice... unless you're having to work 40 hours a week to pay for room and board and tuition while attending college... in which case, you can't do a slave-labor internship... it's all one can do to manage just to pay for the college attendance fees.

Which is probably why, after getting a BA from UCB, I wound up driving a taxi in Oakland. If you aren't already of the "leisure class", and in a position to be supported by family while you slave for the company... then the corporations don't want your kind.

(And, it doesn't help that those doing the interviews will tend to have the same insular perspective that you evinced in your reaction to my post... once again: "connections", you need them to get the interview, and you need to have grown up with them to know what you need to have done beforehand to be taken seriously... if you are not "of a kind" with the interviewer... you might as well take your college degree and shove it up your ass for all the interviewer cares... because you won't be someone who can contribute to the "company".)

:)

[Lucky Luciano]

131. Summer finance internships pay $3-4k per month

Actually, I wish I knew that when I was younger. Then I would have done it! I got a front office job in finance, but it was an all in bet on myself with incredible struggles and perserverence to get my foot in the door without any internship under my belt. Having worked here, I do see the value of an internship because a college kid is pretty fucking useless. The experience is useful actually...eg knows all the main excel formulas and can write good VBA macros on real live data as opposed to silly toy programs you might write in school, etc.


Edit: typing on an iPhone is prone to wild errors

[NashVegas]

41. Snob Post of the Day

Never under-estimate the personal loathing a corporate-owned white collar worker is capable at directing towards independent businessmen and women with nothing more than a HS diploma or GED.

Most garbagemen were independent operators until BFI put the accountants to work ...

[dysfunctional press]

44. you must have meant to post that elsewhere...

before i became permanently disabled a dozen years ago, i was a construction laborer. the only 'white collar' i wore on that job was attached to a t-shirt.

[Greyhound]

71. Your statement carries the underlying false premise that labor skills are

intrinsically less valuable than academic skills.

I would wager that the percentages of the population that are incapable of doing the bank jobs and garbage collector are about the same.

[dysfunctional press]

80. no, it doesn't.

i even point out in my subject line that without garbage collectors a city wouldn't survive.

however- the 'skills' that garbagemen have are very easily learned, and don't require much if any abstract thought. just about anyone could perform them without much difficulty in very short order.

"I would wager that the percentages of the population that are incapable of doing the bank jobs and garbage collector are about the same."

and that is one wager that wouldn't pay off for you. it's simply ludicrous on it's face.

[Greyhound]

83. You reinforce my point twice in one reply. That you don't even recognize it is further evidence. n/t

[dysfunctional press]

85. and you're welcome to your uninformed opinion....as always.

:hi:

[Lucky Luciano]

109. I'll be your counterparty in that wager. nt

[Greyhound]

134. I wish we could find out.

Just to reinforce my point, almost everyone I know is a "white collar" worker of some sort and my dad worked for Waste Management, so I have a valid perspective, and few of the people I know could take the punishment of being a "garbage man" for even one day. The gym guys might make it through the first day, but couldn't get it together enough for day two, let alone six days a week, 12 - 14 hours a day.

Conversely, being a banker requires the ability to read, write, and understand arithmetic, skills possessed by nearly everybody.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

63. Really!

There are an awful lot of idiots in the corporate world, as anyone who ever worked temp can tell you.

[noiretextatique]

45. i can teach someone to do my job

i am a senior accountant, and anyone with basic excel skills can do the work i do...if i show him/her how to do it. the cfo of my company does even less than i do...a trained monkey could do his job. in fact, all of the "executives" where i work actually produce very little, except stupid decisions.

[dysfunctional press]

47. that's why i said "most" and not "all".

:hi:

[joeglow3]

55. I am a senior tax accountant and I could not "teach" someone to do my job

Sure, if you have a college degree and about 3-4 years experience in corporate taxes, maybe.

[noiretextatique]

56. totally different animal

i do bank reconciliations, journal entries, HUD billing, etc. most of that doesn't require advanced accounting knowledge, but i am successful because i have advanced excel skills. i can also teach someone those skills, but i find most of the lower level staff are either not interested in learning or feel intimidated by excel. it did take me many years to develop my excel skills though. i also do taxes (simple ones) and i teach people to do their own, if they are interested. using a program like taxcut works for 99% of the population.
some white collar jobs do require many years of training and experience, but a lot of them don't.

[Chulanowa]

54. Tell that to New York

The sanitation workers go on strike... and what happened? Did the city suddenly fill the ranks with gobs and gobs of "unskilled" scabs?

No. Garbage piled up into massive heaps all over the city, precisely because people weren't clamouring to fill the role.

The strike worked, the city yeilded, and the union went back to work and cleaned the place up.

Interestingly, most white-collr jobs primarily involve lying to people. I can do that.

[Name removed]

58. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Chulanowa]

59. You're calling me a liar?

Because I maintained that your freemarketeer idea that any "unskilled" job is filled with easily replaceable nobodies all happy to work at a lower wage than the last batch is, in fact, false?

You may want to get yourself an education on the subject you're talking about before you start calling people ignorant, much less calling them liars.

[dysfunctional press]

61. because of your description of the garbage strike...

were you living in new york city at the time?

btw- go to a right-to-work state, and you'll find people doing jobs for minimum wage that pay much higher in strong union states.

and- you admitted to being a liar in the first place.

[JDPriestly]

69. White collar jobs generally involve preparing, reading and analyzing

written and technical materials. They don't just require the worker to push the right buttons in the right sequence or lift things or drive things. They require some degree of strictly abstract, intellectual analysis.

The reason that garbage collectors are generally not paid as much as bankers is that the garbage collector does not have to be able to sit and study long lists of numbers and calculations and prepare spread sheets. Also, the garbage collector does not have to deal with people the way that the president of a bank does.

I think bankers are way overpaid. I don't know how much garbage collectors are paid. I do no that I appreciate the work my garbage collectors do a lot. It's just that more people could learn to do garbage collections and therefore there is more competition for that kind of work. It also takes less investment to train a garbage collector. So that is how it happens that bankers earn more than garbage collectors.

If you had an accident and your insurance company did not want to pay what you felt was right, you would probably look for the best lawyer you could find. You would not want someone who became a lawyer in a few weeks on the job. You would want someone who went to law school, a good law school and who had experience in the particular kind of problem you had. It takes a lot of investment to become that kind of lawyer. That is why a good lawyer is usually (but not always) paid more than a garbage collector.

The study is very interesting. I agree with its conclusion. If we compensated people according to the worth and impact of the work they do for our society, pay scales would be quite different. For many reasons, we do not do that.

[Mopar151]

64. I can't lie worth a shit, and it's a career killer.

And I have a skill base at least equal to a BS degree. I'm a prototype machinist and toolmaker. You can go to school to learn my job - about 10 different ones.

Career white collars - particularly in finance and management - hate me with a passion. Mostly, I think it's because I'm good enough with the numbers (machinist is a very math-intensive trade) to prove them full of shit when they are - which for many, is most of the time.

I've done work for areospace and advanced materials (including the "black" world), and I'll tell you what - if you think that stuff is important, fuck up the sewer plant and watch what happens!

[KakistocracyHater]

95. germs, it's all in the germs

& not anyone can drive those trucks, paraplegics might not be able to & they should. The garbage haulers & sewer-cleaners(thanks to Mike & Dirty Jobs) are HUGELY responsible for a basically safe city environment. Their pay ought to reflect this, uncivilized people ignorant of how cities function should be barred from top positions in both gov. & business. Outlaw ceo positions, they're just leeches on everyone: the company, the workers, the taxpayers, the government, the environment.

[dysfunctional press]

102. "Their pay ought to reflect this..."

LOTS of things OUGHT to happen that don't, in the real world.

thems the breaks.

:hi:

[KakistocracyHater]

135. that's what leaders are for......to make things real that ought to be

*

[trusty elf]

3. What about bankers who launder money?

:crazy: :shrug: :crazy:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims

[No Elephants]

14. Good one!

[Odin2005]

4. K&R

[Alcibiades]

5. What about public telephone cleaners?

Could be the only people standing between us and global annihilation.

[Turbineguy]

20. +42

[Harry Monroe]

22. If you can still find a public pay phone anywhere!!

They're a rare sight nowdays

[TrogL]

34. damn, you beat me to it

[Vidar]

6. K&R.

[USA_1]

7. Ezekiel 18:13 in the Old Testament

DEATH TO BANKERS!


For a nation tht calls itself ''Christian'', this is the perfect time to prove the point by actually obeying the Bible's instructions.

[No Elephants]

17. Ezekiel 18:13 speaks of usurers. I'm sure our laws are such that our bankers

do not fall within our legal definition of usurers.

In my state, all you have to do to avoid being a usurer is give notice that you charge interest rates higher than the law otherwise allows and you are not considered guilty of usury.*

Problem solved.

*The reasoning is: the state legislature does not want to interfere with legitimate business transactions and figures gangsters will not give notice and therefore will remain subject to prosecution for usury.

Naive, eh?

[Mechatanketra]

23. "If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me"

The original meaning of "usury" (and hence its meaning at the time it started being put into translated Bible verses) was charging interest on loans, period. Hence, Ezekiel speaks of banking, effectively.

[rfranklin]

24. Usury was made legal by states trying to lure banking business...

I seem to remember usury laws back in my youth but they disappeared along with many other controls under Reagan.

[SOS]

27. 1978 Marquette Supreme Court decision

exempted national banks from state usury laws.
Two states, South Dakota and Delaware have no usury limits on credit cards.
That's why all national banks are incorporated in these two states.

Oddly, a mafia gangster in the State of New York could be sent to prison for charging 18%, while Citibank can legally charge 35%.
No wonder the mob is out of loansharking and is now concentrating on cigarette bootlegging.
Gotta go where the money is.

[Vermontgrown]

43. There it is.

The repukes look at Reagan like he was some kinda god. Guess what, he was a turncoat, and probably wasn't even as smart as the idiot shrub in truth. But, his name pops up all the time these days when it comes to pinning down the cause of the problem society is going through now...

[mbperrin]

26. Usury in the Bible is charging interest of any kind. The Catholic Church

used excommunication to enforce it, which left the field of lending open to non-Christians. All that money being made grated on the Church, so Thomas Aquinas came up with the answer for them:

Reasoning goes like this:
Interest is a charge on money, which is disallowed because money is not human and deserves no wages, in fact, takes away wages from people and their families, which is a sin.

BUT lending money to people does not mean that you must harm yourself and your family to help another - that's a sin, also. So instead of interest, you may charge the borrower the amount of money you lost by not having the money to invest yourself, perhaps in more livestock, more land to farm or whatever. In this instance, you are being made whole, not making money at all.

Problem solved! Now Christians could get into the lending game!

I recommend reading Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm by Robert Ekelund, my economics undergrad adviser way back in the 70s. Terrific work by a great teacher.

[baldguy]

48. Our current, legal banking practices certainly meet the Biblical definition of "usery".

Just like our current, legal insurance & investment practices meet the normal definition of "gambling".

[iandhr]

8. WE needed a study to tell us this

[Oak2004]

9. Here's the actual report

http://www.neweconomics.org/sites/neweconomics.org/files/A_Bit_Rich.pdf

[valerief]

10. I thought that's what bankers and ad execs were supposed to do.

They are not here to help us but to help themselves.

[RainDog]

11. k&r

and, oh, a little "guillotine" for the mother fuckers tossed in for good measure.

[AllyCat]

12. No farmers, no food is a common bumper sticker in the midwest

Love this. Thanks for the link!

[AlphaCentauri]

29. Tomato picker should get $30.00 per hour, banker around $10.00 n/t

[baldguy]

49. "[Bankers} reportedly destroy £7 of value for every £1 they earn."

If they want to perform their job, they should pay the public at least $7/hr.

[NYC_SKP]

13. When I see the Nuts in the Stock Exchange I wonder what the world needs with these people...

Same with hedge fund traders and the rest.

[baldguy]

51. Having the stock market control the economy is like having the tail wag the dog.

No - strike that. It's like having the tail of the flea wagging the dog.

What we need is flea powder.

[femrap]

15. k and r

I remember as a child asking my mom why Volunteer work which truly helped the needy wasn't a high paid job? I couldn't understand how a businessman who just sat at a desk making money and usually bad decisions was rich.

Also I could never understand how a man would be the manager of Women's Clothing....how could he know anything about what women wanted? And the same about a man being CEO of Tampax. WTF? I still don't understand....well, I do but it truly makes no sense.

[Kokonoe]

16. Duhh

People will not get it.
And so it goes.

[No Elephants]

18. If only your dry cleaner would feed you and lend you money to buy a home!

[AllyCat]

133. The banks don't lend money anymore either and are trying to keep

Credit Unions from doing it either. So what good are they?

[Kolesar]

19. K&R -- this was a segment on public radio this morning...eom

[Stumbler]

25. Well, no surprises here

People like Hartmann have been claiming this for years. Thanks for posting!

[Zorra]

28. Great post. Good to get validation about what everybody already knows.

My dog is more valuable to society than the banksters.

[barbtries]

33. that's for real

at least my dog - helps me de-stress after all the crap of the news. he's at least more valuable than the bankers to me.

[sui generis]

30. if it were up to society to determine the worth of everyone

there wouldn't be liberals or conservatives - they would all have been turned into fertilizer under various administrations, and truthfully most people are worth more to society as fertilizer than whatever it is they do.

It's a bad standard to have without defining "society".

[AlphaCentauri]

31. Finally I read a smart economic report

not fantasy and speculation but truth value

[LeftishBrit]

32. Initial reaction: 'Do you really need a study to show that?!'...

but on looking at the story, it really gives some important evidence, that mught actually influence people. Hospital cleaners need to be paid a lot more (though their work tends to be ignored, it can be literally a matter of life and death), and bankers rather less!

[alp227]

36. Sure shows the value of the working class

I read the whole article, and while I'm not sure about the criteria, I guess this challenges conservatives who complain about immigrants: "dey dook are jarbs!"

[JackRiddler]

37. Teachers, nurses, garbagemen, firefighters, farmers - they should be the ruling classes.

If anyone is, they're the ones doing indispensable and usually dirty work.

As things presently stand, bankers and speculators do nothing but suck value out of other activities.

One point you can agree with Milton Friedman on (though he hardly lived as though he meant it) is that the financial sector could be replaced by a computer that determines how much capital needs allocation (or a set of algorithms and a board of economists appointed by and representing different public interests).

[Thothmes]

96. Why,

Teacher do not build the schools, they do not write the text books. They teach students. The nurses do not build the hospitals, do not manufacture the needles, bandages, bed pans, IVs or diagnose the illnesses. For that we need the manufactureres and doctors. The nurses use these resources to care for the paitents. The Fire fighters do not build the fire stations, build the fire truck, maintain the fire trucks, or manufacture fire hose. For that we need the tax payers, the automobile manufacturers and the mechanics and the hose manufacturers. The fire fighters use these tools to fight fires.
Bankers often lend money to schools for school buildings and buy text books. They also lend money for people to become teachers. They lend money to build hospitals, to manufacture of medical equipment & supplies and loans for Medical and nursing training. They lend the municipalities the money to pay for the fire houses, buy the fire hose and the fire trucks. Everyone has a stake in the system that we have. JMO

[Lucky Luciano]

112. ummmm...there are a lot of high tech computer algos

in high finance programmed specifically to manage asset allocations! Finance has gotten pretty high tech actually.

[BrklynLiberal]

46. I read recently that one of the reasons for so many hospital infections

is that the first personnel that are cut in order to save money...the hospital cleaners.

[ElboRuum]

50. Filed under "obvious" for future reference. n/t

[juno jones]

52. Interesting thread and responses.

Fortunately not TOO much of the ol' "but working class people are stupid and untalented and deserve less" grovelling.


People are effectively economically penalized for taking physical work that is necessary yet declasse in our society. As someone who has done society's busy work for years amongst blue collar people, I can tell ya, many are smarter than they're given credit for and have their own skill sets that are not necessarily easily replcated by just 'anybody'.

I may be poor, but I've never screwed people out of their savings or treated others as expendable. For the most part, as a society, we aren't rewarding 'smart' or 'talented', we're rewarding sociopathy and greed.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

68. The productivity of white collar workers is a direct result

of blue collar workers employing their skills.

It pisses me off when that fact goes unrecognized by those who balk at paying a living wage to the people who make it possible for the rest of us to do our jobs as efficiently as possible.

[justabob]

88. exactly

It pisses me off too. I read about the bonuses and the multimillion dollar paychecks etc and wonder why the fuck those guys get to make more in an hour than the guy mopping the floor in the mailroom makes in a year. I have no problem with wealth and/or wealthy people, I just don't see why the janitor doesn't get a piece of the action. I mean really.... don't you think that Mr Executive can take a 9 million dollar bonus and share the 10th million with the secretaries and mailroom guys and cleaning crew.... or heaven forbid, pay them a couple of more dollars an hour. How much money does one person need (or deserve)? It is crazy.

Oh and I work as a waitress... not "just anybody" can do that job, especially at 2.13 an hour. You have to want the money and be willing to do what is required and oftentimes train yourself. Most people think it is menial brainless work. It is dirty, thankless work, but it is NOT mindless and I wait on bankers all day long that can't (or won't) total up 15% in their head, nevermind 20%.

[JDPriestly]

70. juno jones, depends on how you define "smarter."

White collar workers develop their ability to analyze abstract, intellectual data or information. That's the difference. The analysis of abstract, intellectual information takes a certain kind of ability plus willingness to do extremely boring, non-physical work.

By nature, the animal part of us humans wants to be doing things, wants to be physically active. If you paid equally well for white collar work and physical work, most people would probably choose to do the physical work. That's why lawyers head for the gym as soon as they finish work. That's why your banker loves golf so much and looks for any excuse to get out on the golf course.

The white collar workers forgoes the kind of physical activity that is so satisfying to us as human animals. I know the difference because I have done both white collar and blue collar work. Blue collar work makes you physically tired and is more dangerous, but it is on a physical level more satisfying. White collar work is a drain. The thing that keeps white collar workers going at their jobs are the pay and the sense of working with a team as well as the "status."

Scientists are a different breed. They tend to be driven by curiosity and a keen interest in their work. They actually do what they like. Same with artists and musicians. But then, most of them aren't really paid that spectacularly well either. We hear a lot about the successful artists and how much they earn, but most artists and musicians are just getting by and earning a lot less than garbage collectors or working a second job.

[Zynx]

53. This demonstrates why the economy does not function efficiently.

If compensation adequately reflected value, we would have far fewer problems.

[Echo In Light]

72. Agreed

[emsimon33]

57. I compile several online health newsletters daily

for health-related organizations and companies in Arizona. I am including this tomorrow although it did not originate from an Arizona publication or even an US national one. Gee, I wonder why? I think this will give them something to think about!

[AlbertCat]

60. Well, DUH!

[totodeinhere]

62. All honest work is honorable.

But note that I said "honest work." Most big time bankers don't fall into the honest category. They are nothing better than a piece of shit. I don't necessarily apply that same low standard to small community bakers and it doesn't usually apply to credit unions. But any type of honest work, whether it's a cleaner or someone who empties bedpans in hospitals, or whatever, is admirable.

[Mopar151]

65. You, my friend, have it right.

I even met an honest "financial adviser" once. I learned more about investing from that man in half an hour than Jim Kramer (a turd on legs, IMHO) knows today.
A really good janitor is a morale lift for their whole workplace. A good bartender or diner cook is worth more to society than most CFO's.

[JDPriestly]

66. They did not evaluate teachers and doctors, but they are the most

valuable members of our society if you measure the value they produce.

[Kitty Herder]

73. Of course. They had study this?

[valerief]

74. I love this post! nt

[Withywindle]

75. This is one of those 'No Shit, Sherlock' studies, isn't it?

Needed to be said, though. K & R.

[blindpig]

76. Any person's time is as valuable as any other person's time.

It's all ya got.

[anigbrowl]

81. Untrue. You assume all work involves similar levels of knowledge and skill.

time is constant for everyone, for productivity varies depending on ability and experience. I am not good at some jobs due to my small size and lack of physical strength, so my productivity in a job requiring that would be lower than average. On the other hand I have high degrees of technical ability that comes from long periods of study and experience, so in those areas I can get a lot done in a short amount of time.

To the extent that a given job is both economically necessary and difficult, and the number of people who can perform it is limited, pay for those jobs is always going to show differences. Now those differences can be unfairly amplified or minimized by the socioeconomic system in which they take place, but it's not true that all work is of exactly the same value.

[blindpig]

84. That's a capitalists way of looking at it.

Another way of looking at it:

"From each, according to their ability, to each, according to their need."

[anigbrowl]

90. No, that's an engineer's way of looking at it.

If you need a wall built out of concrete blocks, and I can do it in 3 days but someone else can do it in 2, you should get the other guy to build your wall. It is not going to be 50% better because of the extra time it takes me to move the blocks and cement into place.

Equally, your approach doesn't take into the account the time someone has spent becoming expert at a particular task relative to the time it takes to actually perform the task. If I need heart surgery it might only take 6 hours to perform the actual operation, but I'd prefer that task to be carried out by someone who had spent several years learning the techniques of surgery, skills which are in limited supply.

[kenny blankenship]

77. This is usually what I say about insurance corps. : janitors in hospitals are essential

Janitors perform a necessary and valuable service. Insurers, on the other hand, provide nothing of intrinsic value to the health care system. Insurers do not set broken bones, change bandages, invent new drugs or surgical techniques, or even empty bedpans. They are inessential to health care. But health care cannot be delivered in a dirty environment. Hence the lowest paid orderly or custodian in a hospital is performing a more valuable, more essential function within the system than the highest rolling insurer. There's nothing that the insurer does that can't be done more efficiently by a non-profit government agency. Therefore the profit taking insurer's position as a middleman, and a gatekeeper to the healthcare system, to which they contribute nothing, is morally untenable. To perpetuate their existence is to STEAL money from citizens - money they have worked hard to earn in order to KEEP THEMSELVES ALIVE AND WELL. What could be lower? Perhaps stealing money from malnourished people, pushing them into starvation may be lower, but not by much.

[anigbrowl]

79. Interesting, but not that convincing

Although I think they offer a much-needed perspective and I basically agree with their worldview, I don't think their study methodology is all tht robust. you can read it here (pdf file): http://www.neweconomics.org/sites/neweconomics.org/files/A_Bit_Rich.pdf

Their methodology is detailed in the appendices, but I think they'll have trouble getting taken seriously because some of their reasoning is quite sloppy. For example, in estimating the impact of advertising on value, they begin by examining a minimum income and consumption standard and then assuming that all consumption above a certain level is excessive. It would have been more appropriate to examine an economy with a lower Gini coefficient and stable levels of happiness and economic growth and then weight the level of consumption in the UK with the income distribution from that economy.

Similarly, the value created by tax accountants is assumed to be the total of wages paid to such workers, while value destroyed is assumed as equivalent to the taxes such accountants save their clients. It would be more appropriate to examine the economic return from both government spending and from private investment and include any value created by the latter in their calculations. As it is, they assume that money not paid in taxes simply disappears from the economy as if it had been stuffed under the mattress rather than spent or invested.

The consideration of hospital cleaners is flawed too. They assume that since cleaners perform an essential task, hospitals could not function without them, and then form their estimate of created value from the cost that would result if those who required hospitalization had no hospital to go to, essentially attributing to cleaners the entire social cost saving of a hospital's operations, ie all the value created by doctors, nurses, administrative staff, and capital investments in medical technology. In the appendix they present an alternative view which works out at a more realistic ₤2.30 saving (in reduced infection costs) for every pound paid to a cleaner. But worst of all, when you look at this section, you find that that their figures are not only based on faulty analysis, but faulty math - employing their alternative analysis lowers the total estimated value per cleaner by just under half, but they translate this in a saving per pound spend of less than one quarter as much.

Now, I've worked as a hospital cleaner myself, so I was glad to see them consider the social value of such an otherwise thankless role...but I would have been much more impressed if they had worked harder on their numbers. It's a pity because although this study provides valuable food for thought, it's going to be underrated by the people who most need to read it due to the poor quality of their analytical work.

[d3m0l1sh3r]

91. almost all low class jobs

almost all of the considered "lower" jobs such as cleaners, garbagemen, etc are more valuable than almost any "higher" level jobs. the higher ones are a waste of resources

[yurbud]

92. those bankers could still make perfectly fine organ donors. We'll just outsource the

removal to China to save some money...

[fascisthunter]

93. the need to earn a buck should be replaced by another slogan

"Grab what you can and run!"

"Earn" isn't what it used to mean...

[Meldread]

98. I'll take the unpopular view here: The study was bogus.

I read the entire article and not just the snippet. Nowhere in the article did it explain how they came to their conclusions. However, what really caught my eye was this:

Tax accountants

"Every pound that a tax accountant saves a client is a pound which otherwise would have gone to HM Revenue. For a salary of between £75,000 and £200,000, tax accountants destroy £47 in value, for every pound they generate."

Seriously? Their argument against bankers could be believed because of recent events, and all the damage that was caused - not necessarily that (all) bankers are a drain on a society as a whole over the longterm.

However, their argument against tax accountants, for example, is based upon the fact that if they show you a way to save money it takes that money away from government. Yet, on the same token they did not show how much government is a drain on society due to its waste, environmental damage, and overall inefficiencies. By not doing that how can they really say that the money the tax account saves an individual making £75,000 is better off in the government's hands than their own? After all that individual might spend that money at the local deli, promoting local business, which creates jobs by hiring deli workers. Or he might invest that money in his daughter's start-up business, which could go on to create new jobs. So long as he isn't hoarding the money, he's spending it, and by spending it he's creating jobs by driving the economy.

It's really hard to know if this has any basis in reality, or if someone threw a bunch of shit together and pulled all this out their ass. Unless they show how they are doing their measurements, I call BS.

[Crzyrussell]

100. Any statement

concerning "value" to"society" is purely subjective and not a FACT.

[Meldread]

113. Double Post - Ignore

Double Post - Ignore

[Meldread]

114. You may be correct on that point, but...

...the BBC is presenting it as if it were a scientific study. It is very misleading.

"...a study suggests."

"The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation..."

That easily misleads people into believing there is some type of science behind what they are "presenting." In reality, what they have done appears to be nothing more than feed people propaganda.

Keeping everything the same, but changing a few words gives a very different impression:

"Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, according to recent think tank opinion."

"A new opinion, recently released by the think tank "New Economics Foundation", claims hospital cleaners create £10 of value for every £1 they are paid."

That is the accurate way to present the information to the reader, and I'm assuming most people who read that article were sucked into believing there was some scientific way of determining "value to society."

[daleo]

115. What about bankers that take you to the cleaners? n/t

[bhikkhu]

118. I've always thought so! n/t

[earcandle]

119. Hospital Cleaners everywhere should stand up and be proud. And ask for a raise, to say the lease!

[maryinthemorn]

120. of course they are.

[Greyhound]

121. This thread is really quite revealing of the accepted and almost pavlovian bigotry toward

what people themselves consider the "lower classes". We have long-time members from opposite ends of the spectrum defending the idea that 'academic/abstract/symbol manipulation' is superior to, and therefore more valuable than, physical skills.

Have we learned so little? What does it take to make people realize we are all equal, that each of our lives have an equal value?

[Quantess]

126. Someone has to say it!

[malaise]

136. Great thread

Thanks.