Sunday, August 10, 2014

Real Jobs

 Hedge-fund mogul Steven A. Cohen received  $2.3 billion remuneration in last year, despite the company being fined$1.8 billion for insider trading.

Social workers who put in long and difficult hours dealing with patients suffering from mental illness or substance abuse receive an average pay of  $18.14 an hour, which translates into less than $38,000 a year.

Personal-care aides who assist the elderly, convalescents, and persons with disabilities - their average pay IS  $9.67 an hour, or just over $20,000 a year.

Hospital orderlies who feed, bathe, dress, and move patients, and empty their bed pans - median wage of  $11.63 an hour, or $24,190 a year.

Childcare workers, who get  $10.33 an hour, $21,490 a year.

Preschool teachers, who earn  $13.26 an hour, $27,570 a year.

Kindergarten teachers, who make an average of  $53,590 a year.

Does a hedge-fund manager perform a job that entails attending to basic human needs? Do they actually make a worthy contribution to society to justify such rich rewards? Financiers, corporate lawyers, lobbyists, and management consultants are competing with other financiers, lawyers, lobbyists, and management consultants to  take money out of one set of pockets and put it into another. It’s said that by moving money to where it can make more money, these games make the economy more efficient. In fact, it amounts to a mammoth waste of society’s resources. They create no social value, society as a whole is no better off, nor would we be worse off without them.  Capitalism consume the energies of talented people who might otherwise be making real contributions to society — if not by tending to human needs or enriching our culture then by curing diseases or devising new technological breakthroughs, or helping solve some of our most intractable social problems. Graduates of leading universities are more likely to enter finance and consulting than any other career.

Adapted from here


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