alyssavance comments on That Magical Click - Less Wrong

58 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 January 2010 04:35PM

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Comment author: gwern 20 January 2010 08:04:53PM 7 points [-]

"A man does not 'by nature' wish to earn more and more, but simply to live as he is accustomed to live and earn as much is necessary for that purpose... & a people only work because and so long as they are poor."

--Max Weber, Protestant Ethic

That's why you see so many more millionaire plumbers than millionaire attorneys, because the attorney has a higher standard of living, and so has less money left over to save.

We do?

Comment author: alyssavance 20 January 2010 08:24:28PM *  2 points [-]

See The Millionaire Next Door, http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Thomas-Stanley/dp/0671015206 .

Comment author: gwern 20 January 2010 10:32:28PM *  4 points [-]

It cites statistics, and actually says that there are X millionaire lawyers, and X+Y plumbers? It isn't just giving a lot of anecdotes?

I would be very surprised to hear that, because it implies that one is substantially more likely to become a millionaire by plumbing than by lawyering, since there are ~500,000 plumbers in the US and >1.1million lawyers.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 21 January 2010 06:42:55AM *  3 points [-]

It cites statistics, and actually says that there are X millionaire lawyers, and X+Y plumbers? It isn't just giving a lot of anecdotes?

According to wikipedia it (1) generally cites statistics and (2) says that doctors, lawyers, and accountants save a much lower proportion of money than other occupations. google books says that it doesn't mention plumbers at all.

I would guess that pretty much all lawyers permanently employed at BIGLAW are millionaires and pretty much no other lawyers are; but that's probably enough to beat plumbers. I think the other lawyers have a similar income distribution to plumbers.

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