Is Wall Street Draining Hospital Talent? Bankers Still Make More Than Brain Surgeons

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Two stock traders smile

THOMAS LOHNES/AFP/Getty Images

Traders on Wall Street may be griping about this year’s pitiful bonuses, but according to a recent New York University Stern School of Business study reported in Bloomberg, they’ve got little to complain about it.  The gap between Wall Street and Main Street continues to widen.

Recruiters estimate that an oil trader on Wall Street with ten years experience is likely to earn at least $1 million this year, while a neurosurgeon with similar years on the job makes less than $600,000.

Likewise, bankers involved with mergers will take home about $2 million after a decade on the job this year.  That’s more than ten times what a cancer researcher earns at the same stage in their career.

And the blogging world had a few comments. NewsFeed’s most memorable was New York’s Nitasha Tiku:  “If earning potential reflects a profession’s worth in society, then we as a whole value creating wealth off of beefing up corporations and perpetuating our dependence on fossil fuels more than we value the ability to provide health care for intractable illnesses. Another way to look at it would be that it’s all Wall Street’s fault that there is no cure for cancer.”

A possible theme for Michael Moore’s next film? Or as Georgetown University professor Stephen Rose put it, “I don’t think it’s healthy for the economy to be this skewed…Everyone is losing sight of any fundamentals.” (See Photos of the Demise of Bernard Madoff)