How do you spot a successful person?
Posted by richrobinson 8 years, 3 months ago to The Gulch: General
My wife and I moved about 4 years ago to a nicer neighborhood. I like the house and the neighbors but I think of Atlas Shrugged when I talk to them. I have one neighbor who writes computer code for a company that does software for hospitals. A nice person but she makes $100,000.00 a year with 6 weeks vacation and great benefits. Why? The company could probably find 1,000 people in one day that could do the same quality job and accept half that. Another neighbor is retired from Bayer Corporation. A nice guy but the pharmaceutical companies have just about eliminated any meaningful competition and thus gouge beyond belief. Another neighbors husband retired from US Air. During their time as a hub in Pittsburgh they kept other airlines out and took advantage of travelers especially business travelers. When Southwest Airlines moved in to Pittsburgh US Air matched their fair from Pittsburgh to Phoenix. They dropped their price from $1200.00 to $99. I guess I shouldn't leave myself out. My wife works for Travelers Insurance Company. Once again the insurance companies have used their government connections to drastically limit competition. My wife works hard but I wonder what her job would pay if they had to deal with open and fair competition.While I like my neighbors I was just thinking---are they successful or just taking advantage of a stacked deck.
I question your implication, though, that $50/hr to write hospital software is the result of corruption rather than the market price. I see companies pay four times that all the time. They do it because they trust that provider, and unexpected bugs or schedule slippage would cost them way more. The same thing may be true for Travelers Insurance. I know nothing of their business, but I wonder if you overstate the gov't sweet-heart deal aspect of it. Maybe they make their money by providing value to their customers in the current legal/regulatory/business environment. (Maybe they're truly crooked; I've hardly heard of them.) I have the same comment about pharamceutical gouging or airline "taking advantage" of people who need to travel. It's so easy to say people who are succeeding are just doing it by being crooked. I know sometimes they are, but most of the time the fact they're actually providing honest value. The apparent "gouging" and "taking advantage" is actually what causes supply and demand to be in equilibrium rather than having shortages (i.e. surplus demand) that exist where such gouging is outlawed.
It doesn't really exist and one day you will wake up as if from a bad dream to find out.
It wasn't a dream.
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