My father in law is a neonatologist and was given an ownership stake of the NICU he started in a midwestern hospital.
He makes around $4 mil/year.
Granted, he does sometimes stay at the hospital for two weeks at a time with only very brief visits home but at this point he also owns apartment complexes, office buildings, a gentleman's ranch with a few dozen horses and staff and on and on.
I think it is shameful, personally, that he profits so much. He works hard and he saves lives, it's true, but how much is enough?
Speaking as someone who is also familialy-related to a neonatologist and a cardiologist -- both of whom earn more than a few million per year, I'd say they deserve every last dollar of it. They had to go to school for some while, and work under very tiring schedules. Hell, their schedules are still to this day pretty sucky -- they often tell me how much they envy me for my startup I'll-do-whatever-I-want-whenever-I-want lifestyle.
I think they both earn somewhere between 2 to 5 mil/year, but they spend it extravagantly and handsomely -- that's a very good thing. They're spending it on boats, cars, houses, nannies, restaurants, vacations, etc. etc. They're keeping the money going, they're spreading it out. They save lives, get money, and then help the economy by spending this money.
Now, what IS shameful is what the salaries of these social-app CEOs are. Why is Zuck worth some 20 BILLION? He's just going to sit on it, unlike my uncles he's not going to spend the majority of it. Zuck isn't helping the economy, Uber isn't helping the economy (it's externalizing costs, privatizing profits -- if they didn't exist that'd be a good thing). What is shameful is the profiting from rent-seeking, from making a killing on capital gains, etc. etc. Getting a few million per year isn't that bad, because believe it or not, in the large scheme of things that's little money -- most importantly, it's money that one can realistically spend from year to year. Spending a billion -- that's a challenge.
Why is Zuck worth $28.8 billion? Private property rights and a tremendous success. How do you know he's just going to sit on it? You don't, which null and voids your entire premise.
Spreading money out, ie redistribution of previously existing funds through service based consumption industries, is a very mediocre example of "keeping the economy going." Production is what bolsters an economy, not consumption. The faltering US economy has been demonstrating how that works in practice for decades, while China's production-centric economy demonstrated the exact opposite (and the same principle that the US economy was originally built on: production creates wealth, consumption destroys wealth, which is easy to deduce logically).
And sitting on wealth is a tremendously benevolent thing: it removes that purchasing power from circulation, boosting the net purchasing power of every other person holding, for example, dollars. If Zuck puts his $28.8 billion in a bank account, it does two wonderful things for the economy: it becomes available to be lent out by the bank in question, to help fund businesses or similar, and it temporarily removes $28.8 billion worth of dollars from the economy, increasing what other people's dollars can buy.
You're worrying about the wrong things. The problem here is not the pay of heart surgeons and neonatologists, the problem is with insurance companies, our healthcare system, etc. etc. Focus directly on fixing those issues, large salaries for surgeons is only a red herring.
But large incomes for people like Zuck is a problem. That makes no sense to me.
I think it is shameful, personally, that he profits so much.
Profits from saving human lives. Can a price be really put on a human life? Sure you can cite economics and a number like $7MM or whatever, but would you, personally, decide against paying that amount (assuming you had the money) to save your or your loved one's life, push come to shove?
And of course, it is always about resource availability, in this case the resource being money.
He works hard and he saves lives, it's true, but how much is enough?
Demand and supply. He works at a level of specialization that is a cluster of "black swan" events. Hence also, his crazy hours and most importantly, responsibilities. Do you have experience working at a position that is a nexus of similar conditions? Have you ever felt responsible for the life of not one but multiple human beings? And have that responsibility extend over your entire career, each day, every day? Now tell me, how much money would be enough to do work like that and keep doing it well?
Note: I am specifically focusing on money, because that is the question that was raised. Let's not divert the conversation into job satisfaction or humanity and all that, in this particular discussion.
This is the crux of the problem. You can't really.
The interesting thing is that his brother is a physician with very similar training in the UK (they both went to Trinity in Dublin). Does he get $4 million a year? Not by a long shot. Is he hurting for money? No. He has a large house and equally large family, travels all over the world and in general has a wonderful life. Granted he's never bought a yacht on a whim 6 states away, neglected the insurance and have it sink in a hurricane before he ever got it out of the marina (true story) but he is not hurting. Is he any less responsible or hardworking than his brother? Were any fewer lives saved under his care?
You can't measure these things in terms of widgets and currency.
To do so is mere rationalization as if the current state of affairs isan economic inevitability. It clearly is not.
All else being equal, would the brother turn down the money if he were given it? Would he turn it down merely and strictly due to the number of zeroes tacked after the first six digits? How would anyone in his position make a decision either way? All questions worth thinking about. And IMHO, intricately woven of human nature and our immediate economies. I fail to see the foundation of a moral dilemma, leave alone outrage, in all this. But then again, I plead that I am merely following my own moral compass!
>Would he turn it down merely and strictly due to the number of zeroes tacked after the first six digits?
Of course not. And I don't blame my father in law for taking the money either. Why wouldn't he?
I understand your confusion. I was not clear.
I don't think it is personally shameful for my father in law to accept the money. I think it is shameful that we, as a society, have allowed a system to function where he is offered that kind of money. You can cite 'market forces' as the reason that state of affairs exist but the truth is that the market doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is shaped by regulations, standards and bureaucracy put in place by intention or by accident by human beings. No place is that more true than healthcare.
Whether it is doctors that own a hospital or surgical center that, on paper, operate at razor thin margins while paying their principal shareholders, who happen to be employees, exorbitant amounts of money or urine testing companies charging thousands of dollars for a single drug screening while giving kickbacks to doctors in the form of leasing office space in their clinics for far more than market rates for their representatives, or medical supply companies that charge more for refilling oxygen tanks than the tanks themselves cost new and filled then we have some inefficiencies that could use the light of day below the surface.
None of these things are crippling in and of themselves. All of them together are creating a crisis that affects almost every person in the United States.
He makes around $4 mil/year.
Granted, he does sometimes stay at the hospital for two weeks at a time with only very brief visits home but at this point he also owns apartment complexes, office buildings, a gentleman's ranch with a few dozen horses and staff and on and on.
I think it is shameful, personally, that he profits so much. He works hard and he saves lives, it's true, but how much is enough?