[burgers]

> Economics, conversely, is as popular as beer, topping all majors at Harvard, Dartmouth, Princeton and Penn. In what Deresiewicz calls “a stunning convergence,” it was the top major at 26 of the nation’s top 40 universities and colleges.

In a society that sets up severe and aggressive punishments for having less money than someone else, why would anyone go into any other field? Only the masochists and the selfless will be outside the world of finance soon.

[rayiner]

The majority of the Ivy league comes from one particular demographic: the upper middle class. These families might have an HHI of $100-500k; very comfortable, but not so much that the kids don't have to work for a living. There is a strong risk aversion in this demographic, because falling out of this class has really significant quality of life repercussions.

And it's not just the money. For ambitious kids, it's a fear of hitting artificial limits on career progression. Working your way up in a corporation isn't a common career trajectory anymore. Instead, companies hire executives from a particular track, which starts with an Ivy-league school, involves a stint at an investment bank or consulting firm, perhaps an Ivy-league MBA, and from then forward a series of management and executive positions.

The tech industry is somewhat of an exception to this rule, but only somewhat. Elon Musk has a bachelors degree in Economics from Penn's Wharton School (in addition to his degree in Physics); Peter Thiel majored in Philosophy at Stanford, and so went to law school like the other English/Philosophy majors, and then did a stint in investment banking.

And even in entrepreneurship, you'll spend a lot of your time pitching VC's, and guess what's the easiest way to become a VC: Ivy-league, stint at an investment bank or consulting company, then an MBA. If you as an entrepreneur have that same background, that removes one level of insulation between you and the people you need to fund your company.

Considering all of these things, if you're smart enough to get into an Ivy-leaguge school, why wouldn't you major in economics?

[foobarqux]

Thiel was a derivatives trader, not an investment banker.

[josephschmoe]

Engineers have better outcomes at the start of their career and have better odds of starting their own company successfully. If you're a good economist, you'll go into economics. If you're a great economist, you'll go into engineering.

[watwut]

Great economist would optimize the money at the start of their career? I would expect him to optimize lifetime earnings.

[j2kun]

How does this make any sense considering that most people don't choose a career in finance and get by without "severe and aggressive punishments"?

[burgers]

You may want to read what I wrote one more time. I did not say that those outside of finance deal with lack of food, safety and health. I stated that if one has less money than someone else, they are much more likely to have to deal with things like being assaulted or killed or going without enough to eat etc.

So it just seems obvious that if you don't want to deal with these punishments for finding yourself with less money than 50 to 60 percent of the population, you would go into finance as it gives you the best chances of having more money than most and therefore dealing with less, if any, of the punishments US society hands out for having less money than others.

[melling]

Well, there will probably still be an abundant number of indie developers willing to make $40k/year. They'll move to Alaska so they can live the dream. I should have kept a list of all the recent podcasts and links. Anyway, here's one from today.

http://www.developereconomics.com/indie-app-opportunity-gone...

[otakucode]

It always amazes me when a future where everyone can make a good living, but where there may be reduced opportunities for insanely extravagant wealth concentration, makes people scoff, but I see it often. Since technology has solved the problem of distribution - the main product that companies were invented to solve - it only seems natural for centralized companies to dissolve entirely. Aside from solving distribution (both of work and of product), everything companies provide can be provided for nearly no cost by software. And companies today have tremendous overhead, doing unwise things like maintaining offices. They do nothing but drain resources and subtract value. Physical co-location of workers is worthless thanks to technology in most every industry.

And it always seems to be the people who are most dedicated to economic ideals and capitalism who refuse to see that capitalism dictates that the current system of megacorps will be defeated by capitalism itself because they are radically inefficient when compared to swarms of freelancers coordinated by and through software. Simply because we may never see another 'Goldman Sachs' strangling the wealth out of millions and putting it into the pockets of a handful who did nothing to earn it, they ignore the fact that most people only need $72k/yr to get to a point where more money won't even make them happier.

[burgers]

That's kind of my point. How is forcing that indie developer in live in Alaska, much different from the Soviets shipping someone off to Siberia because they didn't get with the plan?

Finance will continue to grow as the preferred choice of those who want to avoid being punished by US society and forced live in Alaska or not have enough to eat or a safe place to live.

[shamney]

the strange thing about this is that economics is a very academic subject with little practical application

[eli_gottlieb]

Get back to us on that when you find some place to live after we automated your trading position. ~~ software industry