Re: Fairfax - Come for the Taxes, Stay for the Torture
Posted by:
PhilLesh
()
Date: May 22, 2005 09:41PM
The Economist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That's great that you get paid good money for
> doing such an easy job. I'm happy for you, your
> company, and the money you guys spend. It helps
> our economy (real dollars)
>
> As for the MPS, I was wrong and I am sorry. It was
> late. I should have said MPC, which is the
> Marginal Propensity to Consume. It's basic
> macro-economic theory.
>
> The ironic thing about this conversation is that I
> am infact 19 years old (well, almost 20), and I
> know more about REAL world mechanics and how it
> relates to the citizen and the country as a whole
> than you do. I understand how people make
> decisions with their money. If you make as much as
> you say you do, then I'm looking to be a
> millionaire one day.
>
> On a side note, thanks for the idea, but I feel
> that people should be payed on a basis of
> knowledge, experience, and hard work. I would feel
> guilty taking a job such as yours without some
> form of post secondary education because I didn't
> spend much time (hell it's just a second language
> right?), or effort earning that type of pay.
I doubt that you know more than I do about the real world. I could be wrong, but I just find that hard to believe. I don't have a PhD in macroeconomics, but my father does. I used to help him grade papers when he taught econ classes at Mason, when I was 10 or 11. Sure, Mason was just becoming independent from UVA at the time, so it was nothing like it is now, but he had to show me what formulas were correct, which answers were wrong, and how to rate essay answers. Plus I have 15 more years of real world experience, I've worked in enough industries to have a broader understanding, and well, I'm a pretty intelligent smart ass ;) Again, I may be wrong. I don't know you. I've met some pretty smart "teenagers" (or early twenty-somethings, whatever... I don't mean that derogatorily)
And I already am a millionaire. At least on paper. A sizable portion of it would get eaten up by the various tax-weilding powers out there if I ever cashed it all in, but at least it looks good on paper. It's hard to buy a yacht "on paper", tho. But I'm also not done saving and investing, either. I should be set and retired by 45, my goal is 10 million. That should be easy enough. I don't know why more people can't figure that out ;)
If you became certified as an Oracle DBA, You would deserve it, you would have earned it. You don't NEED a secondary education unless you're an idiot or want to become a doctor, surgeon, physicist, maybe lawyer. I'm not saying if you want to take the time and spend the money that it's all a bad idea, it's just that you don't NEED to. In fact, in some instances, it could actually HURT you. For example, going to too good of a school and doing poorly. Or doing really well at a bad but expensive school. In fact, more than one time I beat out someone with a BS CS from a "decent" state school because the hiring person was impressed that I had advanced farther than the degreed person, without a degree. Early on, like my second or third job, the guy that hired me said that he actually viewed the other applicant's transcripts because he had no experience and they were "decent", and that since I didn't have any transcripts, all he could go by was that I held a similar job for 2 1/2 years. Granted, I've run into "no degree, no job" before, but that's why you don't just apply to one job when searching for a job, you move on to one where they aren't caught up in that myth that the only way to qualify someone is by their degree. Most people just "default" into going to college, without really considering whether they actually NEED to. And I've found, in positions where I am hiring people, that often, more unqualified people are walking around with degrees, than qualified. And that anyone with experience but not degree generally outshines the degreed people. Just my observation. And I'm not biased the other way, either, I'd hire a person with a degree if he could show he knew how to do the job, just like I would someone without one. I'm not like some people, afraid to hire someone who will advance beyond them, because generally, I look to advance by moving to another company, hopscotch career advancement.
Then you compare lifetime salary, minus education costs, and an intelligent person who skipped college and started succeeding is a good quarter to half a million ahead, in the end. (granted, succeeding is necessary, if you fail, then maybe going to school is a GREAT idea)
Not to mention, once you get your degree, you still have to become a candidate and beat out everyone else to get your first job. And then as time goes by, as you advance, your experience will mean more than your degree anyway. When you're at "mid-to-senior level" like me, often managers don't even look at your education. I was in this job for two months before my boss asked me where I went to school. And when I told him I didn't graduate, he laughed and said "wow, you'd never know" -- I responded, "how would you? Do you expect non-college grads to speak funny or something." I were a koledge stewdint wons.
Like anything else in this world, Higher Education is an industry. It has to see growth to succeed in the long run, so they create and perpetuate the myth that the only way to succeed in life is by going to one of their overly-costly institutions. There's always SOME truth to these market-driven myths, but never as much truth as the hype makes it seem.
You'll go farther in life by not following the "conventional wisdom", because conventional wisdom is usually pretty unwise overall, it's more conventional than wisdom. It's sort of like how common sense isn't very common, you know? It's fine for dumb people, those that don't have a lot of ambition or general understanding of the world, they benefit by following the pack. But often people get "sacrificed" for the good of the pack. It's best to follow your own wisdom, assuming you have one, and do your best with what you have. It's the difference between being a worker-bee and an "independent operator".