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“As an educator myself, I am happy to grant that teachers produce value for students, and for society. But even the most marginal teacher, at the worst and least motivated public school, can’t-wait-for-retirement clock puncher, makes far more than the marginal basketball player. You can’t compare the marginal unit of water, or teachers, with diamonds.”…
I actually don't think this is a great comparison. Both basketball and education are heavily distorted. Basketball by the monopoly of the association and teaching by public sector funding and unions.
I'd argue you can't really compare marginal anythings in either basketball OR teaching
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Niiiiiice! Yeah, agree with that... fiat/distorted markets make it hard for us to disentangle market price info from what's just noise
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33 sats \ 1 reply \ @unschooled 23h
great read, i think he sort of "buried the lede"
Marginal basketball players are paying $65 a month to play, compared to at least $4,000 per month monthly salary for experienced teachers in most states. Basketball players are not paid more than teachers; the entire complaint is a basic confusion over an example that everyone thinks they learned, but didn’t actually understand.
there's probably a lot to be said here but in general I think the comparison you are making (as in #1058011) is that writers, like basketball players, in general operate "at a loss."
it makes me wonder if this has always been the case or are present day, fiat payment schemes/business models to blame.
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Hm... Neither. I'm thinking it's a tech constraints. Once you started competing with the world, rather than your little isolated village, it became a Pareto distribution (or worse...), everyone else making nada
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Wow! Excellent quote. I hope the other economists chime in on this.
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