[DilipJ]

yes exactly. The reason for the escalating healthcare and education costs have to do with the guilds these professions enforce to prevent newcomers from undercutting their wages.

If the U.S. were to abolish the AMA and the teacher's union, the medical and education costs in this country would plummet, and the coming medicare debt could be halved.

[wpietri]

What's your evidence for those statements?

I'm especially skeptical about teachers; I don't know anybody who avoided becoming a teacher because the certifications or the jobs were too hard to get, but I know a number of people who didn't do it (or did it and quit) because the pay and social standing was too low compared with the difficulty of the work.

[forensic]

Teachers just negotiate for job stability rather than wage. For some reason, teachers are extremely risk averse and would rather be paid crappy, forever, no matter how bad they are.

The teachers associations ensure no teachers can ever be fired no matter how incompetent. Teachers get summers off and big pensions and so they lobby for these and other lifestyle perks.

[wpietri]

Which doesn't say anything about the point I'm questioning, which is your claim that teachers are part of some closed guild that drives up wages by forcing out newcomers.

[forensic]

They are part of a closed guild that drives up compensation. Their barriers to entry are just lower.