patrick.net

Reality says

In public/monopolistic sectors, we need people who enjoy the type of work they do, and are relatively simple-minded when it comes to optimizing their own benefits. High pay/pension for administrators in those sectors accomplish the exact opposite, because they are not under market competitive pressure.

That is the key. Univ top bureaucrats collect around them an army of sycophantic "yes-men" who say that Pres is underpaid; then when bureaucrat salaries are raised, suddenly school has not enough money; they go to state and scream for more money; state gives some, but not enough; then, with screams "state does not support education" the administration raises tuition. In private business, they would eventually go broke; here there is no such constraint.

bob2356 says

According to KPMG audit from last year OHSU got 33 million in tax money out of a revenue of 3.1 billion. That is 1% of revenue. What exaclty is your defintion of largley?

This has to be a joke, right? Do you honestly think the school would have $3.1 billion revenue if not for government-subsidized student loans? and government-enforced monopoly on both the practice of medicine and dentistry (the field where the school specializes) and on the establishment of universities itself?

Ridiculous to compare large federal agencies to autonomous public corporations. The mission and job is totally different.

Not at all. Considering both patients (the ultimate customers of the graduates of the school) and students are heavily subsidized by government to pay for a services in an industry that is severely restricted in supply by licensing requirement, the fields of both medicine and medical schools are effective monopolies and oligopolies enforced by the government. It's classic "socializing the cost" while "privatizing the looting"! Those high administrator pays and pensions are one of the reasons why both education and medicine have become so expensive, while students take on mortgage-sized debt without a house to show for it while being taught by low-pay adjunct instructors.

bob2356 says

The salary is 1/3 to 1/2 what a ceo of a similar sized private corporation would earn. For the same skills and management tasks.

Why is it outrageous? Want to provide the missing explanation since no one has so far.

The market place for executives with $1.7mil+ annual salary is very small in the private sector. Most SP500 top executives don't even have salaries that big. If you honestly believe those thousands (if not tens of thousands) of university and hospital executives are just as good as those SP500 executives, then they should be forced to compete against the SP500 executives in the market place, thereby driving down the pay for the SP500 executives! Instead of warehousing them in tax-payer funded institutions away from the competitive market place and artificially creating shortage of executives in the private sector.

Reality says

This has to be a joke, right? Do you honestly think the school would have $3.1 billion revenue if not for government-subsidized student loans? and government-enforced monopoly on both the practice of medicine and dentistry (the field where the school specializes) and on the establishment of universities itself?

So post the numbers. It's true because I believe it shoudl be true isn't good enough.

Reality says

Not at all. Considering both patients (the ultimate customers of the graduates of the school) and students are heavily subsidized by government to pay for a services in an industry that is severely restricted in supply by licensing requirement, the field of both medicine and medical schools are effective monopolies and oligopolies enforced by the government. It's classic "socializing the cost" while "privatizing the looting"!

I've got to assume you are totally unaware the restriction on training doctors is the amount of funding for residency programs provided by state and federal governments. Again feel free to post the numbers on how much students are supsidized any time instead of just saying its tue, it's tue.


www.youtube.com/embed/w0MyA4XKpK8

bob2356 says

The salary is 1/3 to 1/2 what a ceo of a similar sized private corporation would earn. For the same skills and management tasks.

Why is it outrageous? Want to provide the missing explanation since no one has so far.

Yes, but private corporations are beholden to share holders, and a board (elected by company share holders) that determine compensation and severance based on a projected profit or expectations of earnings.

How was this doctor's retirement compensation determined? AFAIK, this is determined by a union contract that is negotiated by the union and the college district, not by taxpayers. It seems here, the "share holders" do not have a direct say (or as direct a say) as those in the private sector.

bob2356 says

So post the numbers. It's true because I believe it shoudl be true isn't good enough.

It's better than the 1% number (only 1% of the college's revenue came from tax payers) that you quoted to deliberately obfuscate. Are you not aware that average medical students graduate with over $160k debt? Are you not aware that specific school gets paid by Oregon State university system via cross training programs?

bob2356 says

I've got to assume you are totally unaware the restriction on training doctors is the amount of funding for residency programs provided by state and federal governments.

This is again nonsense! Just because the hospitals cry for more public funding because they waste money while limit the supply of doctors (the very purpose of founding AMA a century ago; before AMA successfully lobbied the government into restricting the supply of doctors medicine was so affordable that doctors visiting patients home to give treatment was routine). By your logic (training doctors is limited by the amount of funding for residency programs), hospitals and doctors didn't exist before there was government funding for residency programs! How dumb does a person have to be to believe in that kind of propaganda?! Do you believe schools and roads didn't exist before government funding either? How about food if in countries where government organize food production? Government involvement always result in shortage! because government is a form of monopoly. Food was just more obvious; the same thing is happening to medicine and education, only takes longer to become obvious, because people only spend a relatively smaller percentage of their life time dealing with medicine and education, compared to food procurement.

Goran_K says

bob2356 says

The salary is 1/3 to 1/2 what a ceo of a similar sized private corporation would earn. For the same skills and management tasks.

Why is it outrageous? Want to provide the missing explanation since no one has so far.

Yes, but private corporations are beholden to share holders, and a board that determine compensation and severance based on a projected profit or expectations of earnings.

How was this doctor's retirement compensation determined? AFAIK, this is determined by a union contract that is negotiated by the union and the college district, not by taxpayers.

How exaclty is this an explanation of why it's outragous for someone to have a 1.7 million salary running a 3 billion dollar enterprise. Public entities are beholden to the politicians who are beholden to the voters. If voters want to stick their heads in the sand and fail to hold their politicians responsible that is their choice. Oregon has public referendum. Anyone is free to put a referendum on the ballot to reform PERS, but it hasn't happened yet.

I would say the retirement was determined by the rules of PERS. I'm not saying it's not a lot of money. I agree PERS rules are really screwed up. For one thing they allow outside income to be included in calculating retirements. Many things are screwed up, like CEO's getting huge amounts of money for walking away from companies they ran into the ground without the share holders having any say. So much for being beholden.

Won't matter, pensions will need a bailout eventually, austerity will come along. Health care systems are leading cause of bankruptcy, eventually more of the insured will be opting out and leaving the country for medical care. Some corporations are already moving to self-insured and sending employees out of country now. Now, it's a question of who is going to move in closer to the U.S. to provide the services across who's border, or can they do it via ships docked in port. As is in the U.S. Iatrogenic disease (death by doctor), is already #3 cause of death, and of course people flock to Mexico for dentists now already.

bob2356 says

Public entities are beholden to the politicians who are beholden to the voters. If voters want to stick their heads in the sand and fail to hold their politicians responsible that is their choice. Oregon has public referendum. Anyone is free to put a referendum on the ballot to reform PERS, but it hasn't happened yet.

Yes I agree. But here it seems that there is an admission that political corruption could skew what is fair or outrageous in terms of compensation.

bob2356 says

How exaclty is this an explanation of why it's outragous for someone to have a 1.7 million salary running a 3 billion dollar enterprise. Public entities are beholden to the politicians who are beholden to the voters. If voters want to stick their heads in the sand and fail to hold their politicians responsible that is their choice. Oregon has public referendum. Anyone is free to put a referendum on the ballot to reform PERS, but it hasn't happened yet.

I would say the retirement was determined by the rules of PERS. I'm not saying it's not a lot of money. I agree PERS rules are really screwed up. For one thing they allow outside income to be included in calculating retirements. Many things are screwed up, like CEO's getting huge amounts of money for walking away from companies they ran into the ground without the share holders having any say. So much for being beholden.

If a consumer doesn't like the executive pay or executive pension at Apple, he can buy less expensive phones from other phone makers. A taxpayer can't avoid being looted to pay for the public executives and public executive pensions even if he doesn't send his kids to the school.

Indexing public sector executive pay/pension to private sector executives is of course a nonsensical attempt to enrich the super-wealthy: very high salaries are actually very rare in the private sector, whereas in the public sector due to the monopolistic consolidated nature of the public sector there are far more supposedly "high revenue enterprises." At $10k/yr in property taxes, it only takes 100k houses in a town or city to aggregate a billion dollar "revenue"; should the vast majority of mayors be pulling million-dollar salaries and pensions too? What about the heads of the tax-collector's office in all those towns and cities? Why should heads of the assessor's office be paid less? Why should the head of the school district actually spending more than half of that money be paid less? Warehousing so many times more high-paying positions in the public sector would drive private sector executive pay even higher (supply vs. demand). The idea that public/monopolistic sector executive pay should be comparable to the private/competitive sector is utterly nonsensical and would work out to be massive subsidy to the wealthy. It's as if: if a 5000sqft home in Manhattan sold for $100million, somehow the government should offer to buy every 5000sqft home in the country for $100million each! What a huge subsidy to the already wealthy home owners that would be! If the public sector executives believe they can pull $million+ salaries in the private sector, let them go to the private sector and compete down executive pay in the private sector!

Reality says

It's better than the 1% number (only 1% of the college's revenue came from tax payers) that you quoted to deliberately obfuscate. Are you not aware that average medical students graduate with over $160k debt? Are you not aware that specific school gets paid by Oregon State university system via cross training programs?

So post the numbers, it's true because I say it's true isn't good enough. Are you not aware students pay back student loans? That's why it's called a loan, not a gift from the taxpayers.

Reality says

This is again nonsense! Just because the hospitals cry for more public funding because they waste money while limit the supply of doctors (the very purpose of founding AMA a century ago; before AMA successfully lobbied the government into restricting the supply of doctors medicine was so affordable that doctors visiting patients home to give treatment was routine). By your logic (training doctors is limited by the amount of funding for residency programs), hospitals and doctors didn't exist before there was government funding for residency programs! How dumb does a person have to be to believe in that kind of propaganda?!

Now this if funny. Want ot post the statute the AMA got passed to restrict the supply of doctors? I'll wait. Yes there were no residencies in the good old days when people did surgery without anaesthesia bare handed with a cigar in their mouth. Simple but affordable. That was the whole point of residency. To provide an extra level of training as medicine became more complicated. Feel free to go back to the days when your doctor treated your infectious disease or cancer with a warm compress and a shot of whiskey. Let us know how it works out.

bob2356 says

Yes there were no residencies in the good old days when people did surgery without anaesthesia bare handed with a cigar in their mouth.

You are describing the Civil War era army surgeon on the pay of the government. In the private sector, would you spend your own money to go to a surgeon like that? So why do you think many others would?

The irony is that, monopoly-driven high cost and consequent public-pay medicine that you advocate is precisely what leads to mice/roach infested hospitals in Cuba and Venezuela as well as in VA hospitals in the US.

Quality of service is a result of consumer choice while spending their own money, not that of the bureaucratic foremen on a slave plantation (which had single-payer "free" medicine for slaves).

bob2356 says

Want ot post the statute the AMA got passed to restrict the supply of doctors? I'll wait

It's called board licensing requirement. The number of new licensees approved each year to practice medicine is pre-set via committee process, not based on how many graduating students are competent enough to practice medicine. That's the classic evidence of a monopoly restricting supply.

Reality says

bob2356 says

Yes there were no residencies in the good old days when people did surgery without anaesthesia bare handed with a cigar in their mouth.

You are describing the Civil War era army surgeon on the pay of the government. In the private sector, would you spend your own money to go to a surgeon like that? So why do you think others would?

What do you think medicine was in the pre resdency days? That was all there was. Modern anesthesia didn't start until the 1920's and IV anesthesia didn't start until the late1930's. Yes you paid for it because that's all there was. One of the first residencies was anesthesia.

Reality says

The irony is that, high cost and consequent public-pay medicine you advocate is precisely what leads to mice/roach infested hospitals in Cuba and Venezuela as well as in VA hospitals in the US.

WTF are you babbling about? What is public pay medicine? Is that like the rest of the first world that gives better medical care for half the cost? Funny you said Cuba, I actually toured a hospital and school when I visted Cuba. Very clean, no mice or roaches. Cuban kids start learning english in 2nd grade.

Reality says

Quality of service is a result of consumer choice while spending their own money, not that of the bureaucratic foremen on a slave plantation.

So 75-100k a year private medical schools provide better quality of service than 30-50k public medical schools? You are saying we would have a lot more doctors if everyone went to a 100k a year private medical school?

bob2356 says

Want ot post the statute the AMA got passed to restrict the supply of doctors?

Still waiting. and waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

Reality says

very high salaries are actually very rare in the private sector,

ROFLOL.

Reality says

If the public sector executives believe they can pull $million+ salaries in the private sector, let them go to the private sector and compete down executive pay in the private sector!

Many do, there is a constant churn between private industry and public service. You didn't get the memo? Try again.

Goran_K says

bob2356 says

Public entities are beholden to the politicians who are beholden to the voters. If voters want to stick their heads in the sand and fail to hold their politicians responsible that is their choice. Oregon has public referendum. Anyone is free to put a referendum on the ballot to reform PERS, but it hasn't happened yet.

Yes I agree. But here it seems that there is an admission that political corruption could skew what is fair or outrageous in terms of compensation.

Sure it could, that's what journalism and voting are for. Compensation committees don't skew? Usually without stockholders having a vote. Compensation committees are the ultimate incestious relationship.

bob2356 says

What do you think medicine was in the pre resdency days? That was all there was. Modern anesthesia didn't start until the 1920's and IV anesthesia didn't start until the late1930's. Yes you paid for it because that's all there was. One of the first residencies was anesthesia.

Not sure what you are trying to say . . . that US government genetically engineered/invented the opium poppy plant 4000 years ago? As anesthesia started 4000 years ago with the discovery of the medicinal use of the plant. The early 20th century "modern anesthesia" was just a packaging exercise: only allowing licensed "patent medicine" makers to use the plant extract while outlawing all other vendors using the same plant. Attributing the invention of IV to AMA is just silly. Do you think every medical invention during Obama years were due to Obamacare? and every medical invention during Trump years as result of abolishing/modifying Obamacare?

Medical students in the 19th century had post-graduate internships before practicing on their own even before there was board requirement to practice medicine. What happened at the beginning of 20th century was the AMA board licensing requirement and FDA approval requirement, both designed to raise the profit margin of licensed monopolies.


bob2356 says

WTF are you babbling about? What is public pay medicine? Is that like the rest of the first world that gives better medical care for half the cost? Funny you said Cuba, I actually toured a hospital and school when I visted Cuba. Very clean, no mice or roaches. Cuban kids start learning english in 2nd grade.

Have you not heard of the Potempkin Village? What you saw was not the average affair for typical Cuban people, not even for the typical local elite, but a "model hospital" that is specifically put together to showcase to foreign "useful idiots" like Walter Duranty and latter-day "fellow-travellers" like him.

"Better medical care for half the cost" in other first-world countries largely because they don't have administrators pulling multi-million-dollar annual salaries and pensions . . . aren't you trying to say multi-million dollar high executive pay is justifiable?


bob2356 says

So 75-100k a year private medical schools provide better quality of service than 30-50k public medical schools? You are saying we would have a lot more doctors if everyone went to a 100k a year private medical school?

Nope. You are the one trying to say higher payer/cost is a good thing. I'm advocating removing the licensing requirement altogether . . . so if people want, they can learn medical knowledge on their own, take medical exams (run like private testing services, like SAT, not like the current board exam run by AMA as a political lobby for restricting supply), then find their own internships and open their own practices, so the cost can be much much lower! If people want to pay $100k/yr of their own money to get a solid gold degree (and a solid gold toilet to go with it), let them spend their own money; there shouldn't be a board licensing requirement that limited the number of new licenses each year in such a way that the $100k/yr graduate is more likely to find match in hospitals (once again limited in supply due to licensing requirement) in high standards of living parts of the country than the $30-50k/yr medical school graudates (who are currently more likely to find opening in poorer parts of the country, therefore would make less on the new job). Removing licensing requirement would result in far more doctors and far more hospitals competing for customers.

bob2356 says

bob2356 says

Want ot post the statute the AMA got passed to restrict the supply of doctors?

Still waiting. and waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

Have you not heard of the board licensing requirement for practicing medicine? You are just pretending to be stupid.

bob2356 says

Reality says

very high salaries are actually very rare in the private sector,

ROFLOL.

Reality says

If the public sector executives believe they can pull $million+ salaries in the private sector, let them go to the private sector and compete down executive pay in the private sector!

Many do, there is a constant churn between private industry and public service. You didn't get the memo? Try again.

Not sure why you were laughing. The churning is necessary precisely because there are not nearly enough private sector positions with salaries in the $1.7mil+. The tax-payer funded monpolies have to be drafted to keep paying them those high salaries.

So the university mission is to avoid saving tax dollars by giving millions away to few individuals... how is that not wrong?


bob2356 says

Reality says

It is outrageous because these are non-profits and/or their services largely paid for by tax money (i.e. government granted monopolies). By your math, DOD having a 700B annual (public) budget, should the secretary be paid 360 million dollars a year? and a pension of $180,000,000/yr? What about the head of the social security administration or the POTUS supervising even larger annual budgets?

According to KPMG audit from last year OHSU got 33 million in tax money out of a revenue of 3.1 billion. That is 1% of revenue. What exaclty is your defintion of largley?

Ridiculous to compare large federal agencies to autonomous public corporations. The mission and job is totally different.