Physics Why spend 10 years to get a physics PhD and then go to work for Wall Street?

[G037H3]

We've already spoken to each other...

I don't think you really listened

 

[MaxManus]

Therefore, I think that the way forward is not to try to end exploitation, but to increase the generation of wealth through technology so that you can have massive exploitation yet still create decent standards of living for the proletariat.

Isn't this the standard marked liberal view?

 

[Shackleford]

Isn't this the standard marked liberal view?

Not really. They want to curb exploitation and give the wealth to the "rightful owners" primarily through redistribution at the hands of the state. This is more modern "socialism," not Marxism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc. For now anyway, I doubt we'll see murderous mobs who kill capitalists and anyone who appears to be intelligent. I'm a bit confused by twofish. It seems she's a capitalist at heart with a Marxist facade, i.e. "I feel for the little guy, but the only way he can increase his wealth is if the fat cats increase theirs." Isn't this something like trickle-down economics?

Marx was basically incorrect in this theory. The suppositions for his theories are antithetical to fundamental American political philosophy (right to property, individual ownership, and so forth).

I forget the details from my intermediate macro course, but I believe something like 2/3 of GDP is labor. So, clearly, the proletariat benefits disproportionally, but this vast wealth is spread out over a greater number of people. Isn't this preferable and perhaps even intrinsic distribution of wealth akin to the re-distribution of wealth so clamored for?

 

[twofish-quant]

Not really. They want to curb exploitation and give the wealth to the "rightful owners" primarily through redistribution at the hands of the state.

I'm a Marxist. I'm not a leftist. The danger of state redistribution is that if you don't have controls on the state, you end up with a new ruling class, and there are a lot of well known problems with central planning.

This is more modern "socialism," not Marxism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc.

It's actually quite Marxist, although most modern socialist parties try very hard to hide their Marxist foundations. What happened in the 1920's was that the Marxist parties split into two groups, the Leninist ones and the democratic socialist ones. One thing that is quite interesting is to go back in time, even to the 1960's or to the 1920's when you had people in the British Labour Party and German Social Democrats wave red flags and carry pictures of Marx and Engels.

I'm a bit confused by twofish. It seems she's a capitalist at heart with a Marxist facade

I'm a he. It's quite the opposite. I'm a Marxist at heart with a capitalist facade. The thing that I like doing is to read lots of people, and then combine ideas in very weird and unexpected ways. So I'm both a fan of Lev Trotsky and Ronald Reagan.

Marx was basically incorrect in this theory. The suppositions for his theories are antithetical to fundamental American political philosophy (right to property, individual ownership, and so forth).

Which theory? Marx said a whole bunch of things. Some of which I agree with, some of which I don't. The part that I do agree strongly with is the importance of economic and social class in explaining how societies work. I agree with it strongly because it fits a lot with what I see.

Also, property is much more complex than it first appears, as is ownership. Most assets in the United States aren't controlled by individuals but by corporations. I'm actually quite cynical about how things work in politics and economics. If you put enough TV ads and argue in the right way, you can market anything as part of American political philosophy. Take something, paint it red-white-and-blue and you have it.

One thing that fascinates me is how similar modern corporations resemble Communist Parties. The shareholder in Exxon-Mobil has as much real power as a voter in Soviet Russia. All the real power is in the hands of the Politburo/Board of Directors.

I forget the details from my intermediate macro course, but I believe something like 2/3 of GDP is labor. So, clearly, the proletariat benefits disproportionally, but this vast wealth is spread out over a greater number of people.

Unemployment is at 10% in the United States. If you are unemployed right now, it's not helping you.

Isn't this preferable and perhaps even intrinsic distribution of wealth akin to the re-distribution of wealth so clamored for?

Depends. If you are satisfied with the way that the US economy is right now, then you don't need to change anything. Most people aren't satisfied with the state of the US economy, and the job of intellectuals is to come up with new ideas with the old ideas just don't work any more.

The problem with re-distributing wealth is that if you do it, then the people that decide how wealth is re-distributed will tend to re-distribute to themselves and their friends. Market mechanisms are really good because you have ways of re-distributing wealth that gets around this problem... Maybe...

Also people are inherently selfish (which is why putting power in the hands of a central planning state doesn't work well). People tend to be all happy about unequal distribution of wealth if they think they are going to end up on top. If you believe you are going to be a multi-gazillionaire (or for that matter a tenured professor) then you are going to be annoyed at anyone that tries to stop you.

However, if you think you are going to be at the bottom, then your views change a lot. If you have too many people at the bottom, then you have social revolution. So it's in the interest of the people with the power and gold, to set things up so that there aren't too many people at the bottom.

Getting back to physics...

One way the people in power keep their power is to tell people that they are destined to be part of the club. You are special. You are going to be a rich lawyer, doctor, Wall Street MBA, tenured professor. Just follow the rules and you will be a winner, and even though most people end up losers, they deserve it, and you don't, because you are a winner.

Why are people so concerned about getting into the TOP grad schools. Because people have this fear that if they don't, then they are screwed for life. Guess what. There aren't enough places. You are going to be screwed sooner or later. If only a few people get all of the goodies, then you aren't likely to be one of them.

People in the US are extremely angry because people are starting to realize that this is more or less what is going on.

 

[twofish-quant]

I don't think you really listened

It's a conversation. Just because I've listened, doesn't mean I agree.

Part of the reason I may not agree with a great thinker even though I've heard them is that I happen to live in 2010 and I'm seeing different things that someone that lived in 1950 or 1850 or 1750. One reason I like studying history, is that you try to walk in someone else's shoes and look at the world through their eyes, and they helps you figure out what you are seeing.

One other thing is that (and this maybe because of my education), I don't idolize my teachers. Some of what Marx said seems to make sense to me. Some of it is total non-sense. And I have to think a lot to figure out which is which.

 

[twofish-quant]

Isn't this the standard marked liberal view?

Which market liberal view? I tend to agree a lot with Brad Delong and Paul Krugman, but I do think I'm much. much more pro-banking and pro-Wall Street than either of the two. On the other hand, I'm more likely to wear "I love Karl Marx" buttons than they are. Krugman also seems to hate Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, while the two of them are my heros.

One thing about having weird views is that you actually have to ask me what I believe. If you know that I'm a *BIG* fan of Ronald Reagan, you'll assume a lot of things about my views. If you know that I'm a *BIG* fan of Lev Trotsky, you'll assume a lot of things about my views.

If you find out that I'm a fan of both Roland Reagan and Trotsky, you're reaction is likely to be HUH? And if you want to find out why I believe what I do, you'll have to ask me.

Also the fact that I am a fan of both Reagan and Trotsky makes sense if you look into the Marxist idea of "dialectal materialism."

 

[MaxManus]

Which market liberal view? I tend to agree a lot with Brad Delong and Paul Krugman, but I do think I'm much. much more pro-banking and pro-Wall Street than either of the two. On the other hand, I'm more likely to wear "I love Karl Marx" buttons than they are. Krugman also seems to hate Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, while the two of them are my heros.

One thing about having weird views is that you actually have to ask me what I believe. If you know that I'm a *BIG* fan of Ronald Reagan, you'll assume a lot of things about my views. If you know that I'm a *BIG* fan of Lev Trotsky, you'll assume a lot of things about my views.

If you find out that I'm a fan of both Roland Reagan and Trotsky, you're reaction is likely to be HUH? And if you want to find out why I believe what I do, you'll have to ask me.

Also the fact that I am a fan of both Reagan and Trotsky makes sense if you look into the Marxist idea of "dialectal materialism."

I believe a HUH? was justified:-) It is not often you find the quote togehter with I'm a fan of Marx. Its not a Marx or Marxist quote, but I may be wrong?

Marked liberals on the other hand says it all the time when they want less taxes. Or maybe it is the other way around, we call the people who says: "Therefore, I think that the way forward is not to try to end exploitation, but to increase the generation of wealth through technology so that you can have massive exploitation yet still create decent standards of living for the proletariat." for marked liberals. I mean I'm not so sure everyone who comes with the statement believes it. It might just be that "less taxes to make the rich richer" doesn't sell as well.

But I'm from Scandinavia so it might be that it is different where you are from.

 

[vici10]

If you find out that I'm a fan of both Roland Reagan and Trotsky, you're reaction is likely to be HUH? And if you want to find out why I believe what I do, you'll have to ask me.

So twofish-quant, it becomes curious. Will you tell us why do you admire Leon Trotsky, Roland Reagan and Margaret Thatcher?

 

[twofish-quant]

So twofish-quant, it becomes curious. Will you tell us why do you admire Leon Trotsky, Roland Reagan and Margaret Thatcher?

Because they all figured out some of the pieces of the puzzle.

Trotsky got right the idea (too late) that once Stalin was got control of the Party bureaucracy they the Communist nomenklatura formed a new class. Reagan and Thatcher figured out that you can get improvements in the economy by dismantling parts of the economy involving central planning and using market mechanisms.

One thing that I believe is that different ideas can work well or badly at different times, so I don't believe much in grand ideology. Reagan and Thatcher had ideas that worked well in the 1980's, but if you try them at a different time, you can end up with disaster.

Also you can put the same ideas together in different ways. One curious thing is that you'll find that a lot of the neo-conservatives that were the architects of the war in Iraq were former Trotsky-ites (Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz) . The one thing that Reagan, Thatcher, and Trotsky have in common is a hatred of bureaucracy.

I'm strongly anti-neo-conservative, because I think the problem with the Soviet Union was not bureaucracy, but ideology, and if you have an ideological driven war against bureaucracy, you end up with anarchy.

One other factor is that I'm Chinese, and I've been influenced a lot by some of the ideas that are coming out of China. One problem that the Chinese government has had is a very basic one. How do you justify having radically different systems of government on Hong Kong and Shanghai? If you believe in "one size fits all" ideology, you can't.

 

[AlexES16]

I don't know of anyone that has done a Ph.D. in physics or math specifically to work on Wall Street. Personally, I think it's an awful idea. You do the Ph.D. in physics and math because you like physics and math, and then you look for jobs that are useful.



That would have been impossible because my job didn't exist when I started my Ph.D. I seriously doubt my job will exist ten years from now.

I started my Ph.D. about six weeks after someone released something called the "World Wide Web." If you go to the physical "Wall Street", it's a total ghost town. There is no finance happening on the physical Wall Street, it's all apartments and condos now. Wall Street is in cyberspace. The internet has a lot to do with that.



The big decision that I made was not to go out for a post-doc. Part of the reason I did that was that I was in a Baby R' US surrounded by things that I couldn't afford. Money is terribly important, because you are not going to be able to spend time thinking about differential geometry, if you are worried about car payments.

The other thing was that it was clear to me that I was not going to survive academia. I didn't get into my choice of graduate schools, because I was a bit too curious about history and computer science. Things were only going to get worse with post-docs and tenure-track. Also, I didn't go directly from Ph.D. to Wall Street. I spent a few years working as a programmer in other areas.



Wall Street turns out to be closer to my ideal of academia than anything I was likely to get an a university. So at least in my mind, I am in academia. The work environment is pretty much the same as when I was in grad school.



Because I like physics.



There is a quote from Kennedy, "We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

One thing that that makes Wall Street like grad school is that physicists on Wall Street tend to make low salaries. Managers like hiring physics Ph.D.s because physics Ph.D.'s will work for peanuts, and if you give them some challenging problems you can ruthlessly exploit them while you make mega-millions from their work. You are going to have to pay an MBA a *lot* more money than you pay me for the same type of work, because I like math and they don't.

So physicists on Wall Street get paid rather low salaries... Except the definition of a "rather low salary" on Wall Street is something people elsewhere would find shocking.

For me it's a great deal. There is some group of MBA's and finance people that are making multi-millions from the work that I do, and because I like doing math, they pay me peanuts and make huge amounts of money from what I do, and I don't mind as long as they just give me equations to crunch.

One piece of advice. If you want to feel rich, you don't want to go anywhere near NYC. If you make $200K in pretty much any other city in the US, you are going to be king. If you make $200K in NYC, you end up being a peasant. You aren't going to be able to afford an apartment in Manhattan, you aren't going to be able to afford to shop in or eat at the high-end restaurants, your kids aren't going be able to go to the best schools, and you are going to be constantly reminded about how little money you make.

But since I like a challenge, I think that's cool.

And that's why i hate capitalism

 

[AlexES16]

i hated it when people who studied science and engineering went on to do business and finance. i believe that many of them left because there weren't sufficient opportunities or pay to continue working in science and engineering.

in that case, won't there be a brain drain in the area of science and engineering itself?

but it can't be helped i guess. money is a very important motivation for people to work.

i really dread the day when all our inventions and discoveries are made by china and india, while the rest of us are busy generating cash out of nowhere and getting ourselves into bigger debt.

i feel that a big change is needed to make science and engineering seem more profitable and a worthwhile investment in the long run.

i live in a small country, singapore, and even as an undergraduate, i have seen how much science and engineering have declined in my country. singapore is used to be considered one of the four asian tigers which include hong kong(now part of china alr), taiwan and south korea.

in my country here, there has been an exponential increase in people going into finance rather than engineering and science. and our government is trying to make our country into a financial hub like the wall street. just imagine, the whole country, surviving largely on finance.

our semi conductors mncs have all relocated to china and india, for lower cost. the manufacturing industry has since moved away long ago, since singapore doesn't have sufficient land for big manufacturing plants. and we only have a small government backed R&D agency that tried to come up with something. all there is left is petroleum, which has an offshore island dedicated to this particular industry. almost a large portion of our engineering sector is already outsourced to china and india.

but is it good that for a country to be so dependent on the finance sector?

i don't think so. because i have only seen so many of our own people losing jobs in economic crisis and our economy is in fact picking itself back far too slowly. that's because we are too largely dependent on the world's economy and we don't produce our own goods and exports anymore.

do you want to see something like that happen in your own country one day? while taiwan and south korea are still exporting large amount of consumer goods and growing strong in their engineering and semi conductor industry, all that is left in singapore is nothing. despite being a strong economy in asia, we never had any famous consumer brand worldwide or any important scientific discoveries done here.

taiwan has famous electronic brands like acer, south korea has samsung. and we all know too well about japan, they are one of the leaders in technology. and yea, in the US, apple, microsoft, just to name a few.

and these are the companies that will make the country grow stronger. not banks like lehman brothers and insurance company like AIA or watever there are.

you might be amazed though, our government encourages us to study science since young, and similarly like the rest of the asia countries, we have been drilled with maths and science since childbirth.

LOL. but look at what we have become.

this is what that could happen when nobody is interested or deprived in opportunities in science and engineering.

that's why i firmly believed that my country could have done better if we had been given more opportunites to become more outstanding engineers and scientists who could make products to be exported rather than having tonnes of bankers and managers trying to shift assests into their own pockets.

And i puted Singapure as an example of great capitalism =(.

This thread let me the feeling that I am going to die of starvation if i become a physicist, especially here in my country El Salvador.