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To: RetiredNow who wrote (67535)	4/11/2005 6:43:42 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77400

I think the reason we don't have foreign visa workers flooding the medical profession at ALL levels (not just doctor, but pharmacist, nurse, MD, etc)- is primarily because the lobbyists in washington for these various groups have an incentive to protect the profession, not destroy it. A totally different beast in engineering. The corporate lobbies have an incentive to get engineering wages down to as low as possible. Consequently, the profession is damaged. What the CEOs don't get though, is that they engineered their own bear market which will endure for years, because bull markets are in large part psycological and when the jobs in an industry go down, the industry goes down. I know of at least 2 CEO firings recently for stock-non performance. If Carly Fiorina had a $50 stock price instead of the languishing stock price she had, maybe she wouldn't have been fired. But she had such a hand in killing the engineering job market in silicon valley, its poetic justice actually. I wonder if she makes the connection. I can promise you that if we ever get a booming job market like we had in the 90s, for white collar, highly paid jobs (not the Bush economy McJobs), then the stock market will rise again- not before though.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (67535)	4/12/2005 12:48:56 PM
From: pfalk	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 77400

Mindmeld, There are several reasons that we aren't seeing the depression of MD salaries that we are seeing for engineers. One important reason is the one you mentioned: You can't export the jobs to India; you have to import the workers to where the sick people are. But I believe there are two even more important reasons: 1. The MDs have a strong union: You can't practice medicine in the US unless you are certified by the AMA. The AMA acts as a guild, which is nothing but an old time union. 2. The medical profession is operating in a different mode than engineering: There are (in this sense) two kinds of professions: Emergency and Planned. Plumbers, Defense Lawyers, firemen and MDs fall into the first category, as does Undertakers and dentists, but not dental hygienists. Cleaning Ladies and Engineers and most other professions fall into the second category: The advantage of belonging to the first group is: Customers don't argue about the fee, only about your competency. If you are diagnosed with cancer, or accused of a murder, or have a flood in your bathroom, you want COMPETENT help FAST, price is secondary. If you look at the salaries in the first group you'll notice that they are almost always paid better than comparable professions in the second group: Plumbers are paid better than carpenters, Defense Lawyers better than DAs, etc. Engineers typically fall into that sorry category that their work is both Planned, and Outsourcable. I once had an engineering gig that actually fell into the first category: I was one of 2 engineers in the world that could troubleshoot an OLD Semiconductor Equipment system, which was still widely used by this company's customer. I was the Go To Guy when there was a problem anywhere in the world. I was also a contractor, since there was no new development on this old system, all the engineers were working on the new "sexy" development, not on this old Z-80 based system written in assembly. When they called me up with a problem, there was NEVER any discussion about lowering the price - in fact they usually mentioned a rate that was $5 HIGHER than last time (just a few months earlier). Boy, I loved that gig, but ultimately their customers replaced all the old systems : ( Peter