But look at the cost of medical devices and what they pay their sales people. The cost of pharmaceuticals, especially me-too drugs, the cost of long term care, the cost of unnecessary care such as cosmetic surgery and the cost of uncovered care for folks who elect not to have insurance and get sick or injured.

Roman, you are a man who has no real understanding of medical economics. Health care costs are much much more than doctors’ salaries and every cost in medicine has increased exponentially more than doctors’ salaries. Furthermore, all doctors do not make the same salary.

I know this is a minor point and this thread is old (I would have responded sooner but I was too busy putting in an 80-hour week to make the same salary i did in 1998), but a little more rigor in needed before castigating an entire profession. Idiot.

Exactly. It’s not about education, especially at the top end. It’s about maintaining the luxury Ivy League brand.

There’s no economic reason why Yale, to take one example, which has an endowment of almost 23 billion (thank you David Swensen!) can’t be tuition free. Except, of course there is. Wouldn’t be Yale or Princeton if everyone who is smart enough to be accepted could go, right?

To quote Birmingham, “According to the best possible source – the Social Establishment itself – the most important college, socially, is Yale. Princeton has more glamour, but Yale is solider.”

What. You thought GW Bush got in on his merits? Oh, I forgot. Head cheerleader at Andover. Impressive.

It is absolutely ridiculous to hack on teachers. They are underpaid both in nominal terms and in particular when taking into the amount of work that they put in trying to educate YOUR BRATTY-ASS KIDS. I’m not a teacher but have friends and family who are… they get up butt-early in morning, pay for class room supplies out of their own pocket, get no salary during vacations, are expected to continually get training and education just keep their certs etc etc. If only the same would be true for the office monkeys who obviously have so much time on their hands that they can sit and write comments on this blog [snark].

Also, with assaults (physical and psychological) on the rise in American schools and on campuses, to claim that there is no risk is arrogant, ignorant and preposterous.

Maybe you should educate your own damn kids if the teachers aren’t worth the money? But that would mean that you had to spend time with the little shits wouldn’t it – and who the hell would wanna do that?

Oh yeah, the teachers do…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

To improve snarkiness always add:

“…and their citizens have a shorter average lifespan.”