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With Finance Disgraced, Which Career Will Be King?

bigbadwolf said:
What works against the USA is the intangible impact of an anti-intellectual culture.
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U.S. culture is anti-intellectual? I once spoke with a doctor of Anthropology who told me that culture can not be defined among Anthropologists without a fight. It amazes me that you are able to understand the entire U.S. culture--to such a degree--that you can define North, South, East and West as anti-intellectual. This statement is a wildly ignorant generalization at best.
 
CGiuliano said:
U.S. culture is anti-intellectual? I once spoke with a doctor of Anthropology who told me that culture can not be defined among Anthropologists without a fight. It amazes me that you are able to understand the entire U.S. culture--to such a degree--that you can define North, South, East and West as anti-intellectual. This statement is a wildly ignorant generalization at best.
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Try reading Richard Hofstadter's classic, "Anti-intellectualism in American Life" for starters. Then Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind." Then Morris Berman's "Dark Ages America." Then Jane Jacobs' "Dark Age Ahead." Then we will talk. Otherwise I am wasting my time.

Susan Jacoby has also come out with a book on the topic. I don't recommend it but here is an article by her in "The Washington Post."

Postscript: I also like Bill Readings' "The University in Ruins."
 
I would assume you also believe the French are cowards, Jewish people are cheap and Asians are all good at math also? Throwing a bunch of Authors names around, does not change the fact that saying "U.S. culture is anti-intellectual" is an ignorant statement.

The arguments in this article are absurd:

"Americans' rising level of formal education and their shaky grasp of basic geography, science and history; and the fusion of anti-rationalism with anti-intellectualism.

First and foremost among the vectors of the new anti-intellectualism is video. The decline of book, newspaper and magazine reading is by now an old story. The drop-off is most pronounced among the young, but it continues to accelerate and afflict Americans of all ages and education levels."

I am reading information from QuantNet, but since it is not written in a book this article suggests that it is less valuable. There is no grasp of confounding variables. We are in a new era; information can be obtained in a different manner. Why are books inherently more intellectual? I do not see how this relates to reasoning and understanding. I also find it rather convenient that you "do not recommend" the only evidence you use to support your point.
 
All that being said-- I know what your trying to get at. It is only offense because my family and our values are a subset of U.S. culture. So, that statement is effectively saying that how I act, what I own, what I value and what I am, are all inherently anti-intellectual because of my geographic region.
 
CGiuliano said:
I am reading information from QuantNet, but since it is not written in a book this article suggests that it is less valuable. There is no grasp of confounding variables. We are in a new era; information can be obtained in a different manner. Why are books inherently more intellectual? I do not see how this relates to reasoning and understanding. I also find it rather convenient that you "do not recommend" the only evidence you use to support your point.
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The Jacoby book isn't worth the $25 you would have to dish out for it, whereas the Hofstadter book has much more substance. And your arguments -- I use the word rashly -- exemplify the point I am trying to make: it's not "information" that makes one intellectual -- it's having been exposed to sustained arguments, debates, and discussions and to be capable of contributing to ongoing debates in art, literature, philosophy, politics, and so on. Putting forward sustained discussions and arguments is what a good book does and an article in on the web or in Forbes magazine does not. Spengler's sustained discussion, for example, on the decline of the West cannot be compressed into five pages without losing major chunks of his reasoning and examples. There is a tightly structured web of insights, arguments, and examples carried over hundreds of pages. Your lack of understanding of this drives home the very point I am trying to make about anti-intellectualism in America.

The USA cultural environment is an ocean of factoids without any context; ephemeral fads, fashions, and crazes; and an insufferable shallowness in conversation and social relationship. Understanding of history and philosophy are lacking. Language is impoverished.

You start to become an intellectual when you offer ideas, arguments, and counterarguments of your own instead of drawing everything down to a personal level -- so common in the USA -- and complaining of how personally offended you feel by my contention.

One more book to recommend -- though I wonder if you will bother reading any of them -- Graff's "Clueless in Academe."
 
CGiuliano said:
All that being said-- I know what your trying to get at. It is only offense because my family and our values are a subset of U.S. culture. So, that statement is effectively saying that how I act, what I own, what I value and what I am, are all inherently anti-intellectual because of my geographic region.
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No, you are misinterpreting it. It holds in the large: anti-intellectualism is a stultifying influence; it doesn't hold in each and every case. The country has produced a Henry James, a Thoreau, a Poe, a Dewey, and a Veblen.
 
bigbadwolf said:
One more book to recommend -- though I wonder if you will bother reading any of them -- Graff's "Clueless in Academe."
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I think Graff's points are all interesting and valid, but that comment seems to be more of a personal attack than a real suggestion. I feel that my Ivy League education has been rewarding and enriching; by no means lacking in student to teacher accessibility.

BTW, have you ever heard the term "baffling with bullshit"?
 
On topic...

I'd suggest looking into commodities, particularly energy.

This from Reuters:

http://www.reuters.com/article/wtUSInvestingNews/idUSTRE55H1YA20090618

As Wall St ails, oil traders weigh return to roots


By Jonathan Leff - Analysis
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - For a growing number of oil traders, there's a new math at work in the traditional career calculus: why take the stress, long hours and uncertainty of a Wall Street job when the easy money is in physical trading?

While investment banks and hedge funds nurse the painful wounds of constricted credit markets, lessened liquidity and more restrictive remuneration schemes, oil majors like BP (BP.L) and independent traders like Vitol are raking in record profits by filling up storage tanks or exploiting global arbitrage.

The shifting jobscape is causing at least some to reverse a career path that in the past would have begun at a global oil major, possibly pausing at an independent trading house on the way to a Goldman Sachs (GS.N) or Morgan Stanley (MS.N) seat.

"Though it's not clear that corporations will be able to match the compensation that banks offer, I've heard several people say that they are thinking hard about whether the work/life trade-off is worth it with reduced remuneration," said Andy Awad at Greenwich Associates, a consultancy that conducts annual studies of the Wall Street commodity trading sector.
While the flow is unlikely to become a torrent, it could bring about considerable change: oil companies and trading firms may find themselves better able to challenge the banks in the area of offering third-party risk management; the banks may find themselves increasingly struggling to trade in physical markets, which have proven to be a cash cow this year.
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Article in NYT about how doctors are doing now: A Doctor by Choice, a Businessman by Necessity


I recently spoke with a friend who dropped out of medical school 20 years ago to pursue investment banking. Whenever we meet, he finds a way to congratulate me on what he considers my professional calling. He often wonders whether he should have stuck with medicine. Like many expatriates, he has idealistic notions of the world he left.

At our most recent meeting, we talked about the tumult on Wall Street. Like many bankers, he was worried about the future. "It is a good time to be a doctor," he said yet again, as I recall. "I'd love a job where I didn't have to constantly think about money."

I didn't bother to disillusion him, but the reality is that most doctors today, whether in academic or private practice, constantly have to think about money.

"More and more you'll see people in medicine get M.B.A.'s," a doctor told me at a seminar, in a prediction borne out in my experience. "We are in a total crisis, and I don't know the answer."
 
maxrum said:
Article in NYT about how doctors are doing now: A Doctor by Choice, a Businessman by Necessity


I recently spoke with a friend who dropped out of medical school 20 years ago to pursue investment banking. Whenever we meet, he finds a way to congratulate me on what he considers my professional calling. He often wonders whether he should have stuck with medicine. Like many expatriates, he has idealistic notions of the world he left.

At our most recent meeting, we talked about the tumult on Wall Street. Like many bankers, he was worried about the future. "It is a good time to be a doctor," he said yet again, as I recall. "I'd love a job where I didn't have to constantly think about money."

I didn't bother to disillusion him, but the reality is that most doctors today, whether in academic or private practice, constantly have to think about money.

"More and more you'll see people in medicine get M.B.A.'s," a doctor told me at a seminar, in a prediction borne out in my experience. "We are in a total crisis, and I don't know the answer."
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This makes me think...in all professions, as prestige and income and jobs decline, people move out of those professions and shun them. Sooner or later, there is not enough supply and too much demand, forcing salaries far higher.

The labor market will determine the optimal allocation via supply and demand. For instance, when Silicon Valley went bust, people indeed lost their jobs. However, right now, Silicon Valley is once again probably the number one place to be in. Heck, Google is the single largest quant shop in the world, if we go by what Jim Simons says ("At Goldman, these scientific types are called quants. Some of you may have heard of quants. But at Google, they're called employees.").

That said, considering the ridiculous costs of malpractice insurance, that's just got to go. Yes, there are corrupt doctors. However, they're the few bad eggs. And would a doctor with a good doctor/patient relationship really do ill onto the patient for money?

Or am I being naive?
 
Malpractice insurance rates are a popular target, but there is little or no evidence that this actually raises health care costs. Most experts are now saying that the way doctors are compensated based on procedures, rather than results, provides incentive for waste. Many tests are ordered (as the essay notes) in order to increase compensation. Change the incentives and you lower costs.

I'll try not to get into a health care in America discussion here.
 
Woody, what better incentive as a Dr than "i'm saving your life"? or "I'm getting rid of your pain"? How much are you willing to pay for that?

My opinion in this topic is VERY biased since I have a lot of doctors in my family so I rather don't talk about it.
 
woody said:
On topic...

I'd suggest looking into commodities, particularly energy.

This from Reuters:

http://www.reuters.com/article/wtUSInvestingNews/idUSTRE55H1YA20090618

As Wall St ails, oil traders weigh return to roots
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To add to my promotion of energy-related careers, a slide from one of Matthew Simmons's presentations (emphasis mine):

The U.S. Labor Department's Statistics Reveal...
? Employers expect half of current workers to retire in next 5 to 10 years.
? Energy careers deemed "unstable, dirty, and low-skilled."
? Most training programs scaled back or closed.
? Energy industry needs workers proficient in math, science, and, especially technology.
? Few industry-defined, portable credentials have been developed.
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Here's the whole presentation if you're interested:

http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/OTC Topical Luncheon BW.pdf
 
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