[louzell]

> This is why bankers earn more than nurses and teachers

I think it has more to do with the proximity to money. A banker is close to lots of money moving around, and in a position to craft some scheme to extract parts of it. This basically applies to all of finance. The closer you are, the more opportunities to extract large amounts. A nurse is far removed from the flow of money.

[LatteLazy]

I think it certainly helps. But if that were the only factor, nurses would earn the same as doctors as they're side by side all day. And the guy making coffee in the financial district would get a fantastic bonus. :)

[matwood]

Not just finance. If you want to be wealthy get as close to large sums of money as possible. That's why people move to big cities and go to top schools. They are proxies to being near large sums of money.

[polygamous_bat]

It's also much harder to make money by creating value (i.e. nursing a sick person back to health) vs stealing value at scale (i.e. charging $25 overdraft fees to poor people's bank accounts.)

[LatteLazy]

Most people would rather pay a $25 overdraft fee, than not go overdrawn and keep the $25. That's what the fees popularity tells us.

Most people would rather keep $25 (or spend it on an overdraft fee) than give it up to pay a nurse to nurse a sick, poor person.

These are the unpopular truths we all deny and yet all see daily.

[joshuaissac]

> Most people would rather pay a $25 overdraft fee, than not go overdrawn and keep the $25. That's what the fees popularity tells us.

That is not the case. In the US, only 41% of the people who went overdrawn did so willingly. About 20% knew they were low on funds and expected their deposit to clear first, and for the remainder, the overdraft was a surprise.[1]

The popularity of fees indicates that those who charge them want to keep charging them; it does not indicate that those who pay the fees are in favour of going overdrawn and paying fees.

1. Page 15 of https://curinos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Curinos_2021-... (2021)

[LatteLazy]

You miss my point.

My interpretation of the evidence is that 41% happily admit it. And another 50 plus pretend they don't. A few are unlucky as you say.

If this were not the case, those 50ish percent would stop doing it. The fact they keep paying these fees tells us one of 2 things is true: EITHER they are honestly not capable of managing a current account OR they (like the 41%) choosing not to but are conditioned not to admit it.

Personally I find the second option much more likely.

The same is true in a lot of other pieces of evidence: people routinely vote against their own interests for instance. And they knowingly eat food that's bad for them despite being offered alternatives.

This is a fundamental part of human nature no one wants to address: people are not logical, dispassionate, long term thinking, selfless, analytical, strategic entities. They do dumb shit that is bad for them. And then they lie about it.

"Lie" might not be the right word, people will claim passionately they want X then do Not X without a moments hesitation.

[polygamous_bat]

> The fact they keep paying these fees tells us one of 2 things is true: EITHER they are honestly not capable of managing a current account OR they (like the 41%) choosing not to but are conditioned not to admit it.

The fact that people keep getting robbed at gunpoint tells us one of two things is true: EITHER the victims are honestly not capable of living in a crime-infested world, OR they choose to get robbed but are conditioned to not admit it.

See the issue with your logic? There's a third option: there is a large power imbalance (like people designing exploitative bank account UXs/people in shady corner with guns) and that is being exploited against the wishes of the people who are victimized by them.

[LatteLazy]

I mean, if you keep getting robbed by the same guy, in the same alley, and you could easily avoid that alley, but you don't and you know you will get robbed when you go down there, then yes. Sooner or later you're not actually being robbed. You're giving the guy money presumably because you like the service he offers?

I am all for clearer labeling etc. The few who legitimately don't want to go overdrawn should be offered all the assistance possible.

I just think we need to acknowledge that 40% admit they choose this and another 40% choose it but won't admit it...

[Ekaros]

I think it is always about the efficiency. Both nursing and teaching is low efficiency jobs. With teaching the customers or users are poor be it students or pupils. Just take a number of students in class. And multiply that by amount of money you are ready to pay for teaching each month. Now add everything else, it just doesn't scale.

Same goes for nursing, a single nurse can only nurse so many people in single month. And it only gets worse if you want 24/7 coverage. At least with teaching you could do 6 hours teaching + 2 hours other work during weekdays.