Kevin D Williamson on work and earnings:
The median salary for a women’s-studies professor is more than a hundred grand a year. The average hourly earnings for a graduate with a women’s-studies degree? Eleven bucks an hour, well less than you’d make working the car wash at a Buc-ee’s convenience store.
‘Would you like gravy on your fries?’
And expand the story to include ALL professor salaries compared to the median salary of workers in their respective disciplines and you will find similar results. And expand the story to include ALL government salaries compared to the equivalent private endeavors and you will see the same results. For example, in my own local city here in N.CA … the Senior Planner in the local building dept. is paid approx. $ 160K per year + benefits. (And BTW … Senior Planner is two steps below the top Planning Dept. position) These people are earning FAR more than the average design professionals they “regulate”. It is an OLD, outdated canard to call government workers “servants”. They are overcompensated government regulators who carry no liability or responsibility for their actions.
There are doctors who barely make a hundred thousand dollars a year:
http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Family_Physician_%2f_Doctor/Salary
One group saves or improves the lives of many. The other gets rich off of bullcrap.
An asteroid/zombie apocalypse/revolution is needed.
That’s the beauty of deficit financing. The insanity can continue right up until the system implodes and takes everyone down. The masses can be bought off with shiny objects offered by politicians indefinitely until no one will loan to the government or the currency is inflated to worthless.
Liberal Arts colleges should all be replaced with Library Cards and their professoriate can flip burgers until the minimum wage creep replaces them with robots.
Tenured professors do quite nicely, thank you very much. I once came across salary figures for faculty at a certain Canadian university. Two people I was in grad school with are engineering profs there. One was getting over $100,000/yr and the other was paid only a paltry quarter million.
By comparison, I, while I was in industry, could only dream of such a salary. I often worked long hours with no compensation (“if you succeed, the company succeeds”) and I often wondered if I still had a job by the time I left for the day. In addition, being a registered P. Eng., I had the added legal responsibilities that came with that status.
I remember how my Ph. D. supervisor often whined about how “poorly” he was paid. He was paid so poorly that he had quite a nice house in a ritzy neighbourhood of the city, though I must admit I had no idea as to whether it was paid for.
On the other hand, most universities now rarely grant tenure to new faculty, hiring them instead on a per-course or per-session basis as adjuncts. Many of those professors often have to juggle assignments at more than one institution in order to pay their bills.
Meanwhile, the administrators and senior faculty are doing quite nicely, thank you very much. That’s one reason tuition has gone up so dramatically.
Nice work if you can get it.
Under Capitalism, the rich become powerful.
Under Socialism, the powerful become rich.
Under Socialism, government employees become powerful.
Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.
Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.
–Jerry Pournelle
The insanity can continue right up until the system implodes and takes everyone down.
You are right. When it happens in N.America, as it has happened already around the world, people in cities will be the hardest hit. Smart people are finding places outside the cities where they can lead a good life in a small community with a minimum of government intrusion in their lives.
Hope for the best; plan for the worst — be prepared.
You were lucky. Today with the oil and gas industry on the ropes there are thousands of engineers with no work and few prospects.
Even in fields where there once were engineering jobs many of those jobs have been out-sourced to places like India. Donald Trump is finding support for a reason.
In addition, whatever engineering jobs are available rarely go to people of my generation. (Yes, age discrimination exists and is shamelessly practiced.) We’re seen as obsolete or outdated, incapable of learning anything new, and out of touch with what’s important to millennials.
Those are reasons why engineering as a profession is in trouble. It’s gone from being largely concerned with technical matters to being more like accountancy. I’ve known electrical engineering students who didn’t know how to use hand tools like wire strippers.
I no longer worry about this sort of thing because I’m semi-retired and work for myself on things that interest me.
“Eleven bucks an hour”
Some government wonk is going to have to make sure that average gets topped off to bring it up to $15/hr.
Pity the “Wymyns’ Studies” students don’t also study economics. They might learn about the phenomenon of market saturation.
I’ve long been mystified what one does with such a degree, aside from hanging it on the wall to cover up holes or or using it to become a political hack.
In this political climate this sort of degree can be used to climb the corporate ladder of success if it’s coupled with a business management degree.
However there are only so many corporate takers, but there must be some, especially if the corporation wants to get some of that PC government cheese.
“It is an OLD, outdated canard to call government workers “servants”.
Firemen in my small city: Starting salary $80,000/yr. Average salary $107,000/yr.
Most work second jobs or run small businesses (contractors etc.). Apparently they have too much time and too little income. Our firemen make the same as their counterparts in Vancouver, despite housing cost being approx. 1/3 of Vancouver. Their excuse for unconscionably high salaries? “We get paid for what we know, not where we live.”
Meanwhile, they compete against others who don’t have the benefit of a hefty ‘gov’t subsidy’ and small town residents see their taxes rise exponentially. Oh, and our last city manager? He got paid more than the Prime Minister or the Mayor of New York.
Or, together with a law degree, one can sue one’s way to success. There was a well-known case of that sort in the U. S. a year or two ago.
I have a 55 year old friend visiting from Saskatchewan. I related these stories to him. I think he believes I was exaggerating and/or making up all of them. When will the average voter become aware of what parties supports this nonsense?!
We’ve got something like that here in Alberta. It’s call the NDP.
Red Rachel opened up a branch of her Kremlin in Calgary and staffed it with select socialists. Of those that I heard of, none are earning less than a 6-figure salary. Of course, details about how their pay is justified, particularly when she’s helping run up a record deficit, are scarce.
Then there’s the NDP staff twerp who was given a fully-loaded $50,000 SUV…..
But, we mustn’t call Alberta’s communist government a bunch of robber barons, eh?
When? Never. There are too many LIVs out there to care what’s going on.
I’ve long been mystified what one does with such a degree
They get a job in the leftist media or in one of the many leftard ‘non-profit’ NGOs that have sprouted up like weeds with ample govt fertilizing.
I suppose you’re right. I was foolish enough to think that such a degree would have a practical use, such as a B. Sc. in engineering or an M. D. would provide.
In most cases the LibArts folks I’ve known were far more concerned with having a degree, almost any degree, and whether or not the degree had any practical application wasn’t important. The possible exception was for those in education. They are however some of the nicest people one would want to meet with far better ‘people skills’ than most folks in technical disciplines.
The talking frog joke illustrates that rather well.
An engineer was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, “If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful princess.” He bent over, picked up the frog, and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week.” The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it, and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I’ll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want.” Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it, and put it back into his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, “What is the matter? I’ve told you I’m a beautiful princess, that I’ll stay with you for a week, and do anything you want. Why won’t you kiss me?” The engineer said, “Look, I’m an engineer. I don’t have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog – now, that’s cool!”
source: http://www.jokes4us.com/peoplejokes/engineersjokes/princessfrogjoke.html
OK, this discussion was all great but the important question is Why doesn’t my Buc-ees have a car wash.