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Money v Making Stuff-Should Britain bid farewell to the golden egg of banking.
mo khan
Posted: 13 August 2011 17:33:28(UTC)

Joined: 17/11/2010(UTC)
Posts: 10

Scientists and Engineers are underpaid and also sleep walked into lower, self esteem, blissfully unconscious of their self worth and contribution to the community they serve.

Since when has any one of them walked away with £million in pension or bonuses, ?? the cars they drive are called old bangers,!! they have been brainwashed by the elite since birth into this image and revel in it and believe that this is a privileged positionto live down to, in a way it is better than being car park meter attendant. Scientists and Engineers have become so big headed that they don’t realise the joke is on them.

Politicians, pay and tell them, how what and when to make things. yet it was the politicians who were their employees, the debate will wrangle on and on… Tail wagging the dog!
Jeremy Bosk
Posted: 13 August 2011 17:50:49(UTC)

Joined: 09/06/2010(UTC)
Posts: 1,316

mo khan

Engineers at the top

• Engineering is one of the very best foundations for making it to the top.

• It is a myth that engineers do not 'make it' in business. 16% of Directors of FTSE 100 companies (both executive and non-executive) with a first degree had studied engineering. When those holding professional qualifications were considered, professionally qualified accountants outnumbered professionally qualified engineers 3:2 on all FTSE 100 Boards. However, within the manufacturing sector, 28% of directorships were held by engineers compared with only 20% by accountants.

• In the middle of 2000, 16 of the top executives - that is chief executives, managing directors or chairmen - of the FTSE 100 companies were engineers, compared to 17 who were accountants. In the next analysis, the composition of the FTSE 100 being as at December 2001, 15 of the top executives were engineers, 10 were scientists and 20 were accountants.

• With the exception of accountants, there are more engineers on the Boards of quoted UK companies than there are representatives from any other profession.

• Chartered Engineer CEOs outnumber accountant CEOs by three to one in UK manufacturing. Of the 43,000 or so Directors of manufacturing companies in this country, more than 10,000 are engineers.

• Of the 121 Institutions of Higher Education in the UK in June 2002, 52 had Vice-Chancellors or Principals with engineering/scientific qualifications. 17 of the 52 were actually professional engineers, representing 14% of the total - more than most other disciplines.
http://www.jobsite.co.uk...cgi?act=da&aid=1581

This research is somewhat elderly but I doubt much has changed. Scientists and engineers can rise to board level and the pay and privileges that are associated therewith. Many prefer full time employment in r&d because of the personal fulfilment.
MrFiat
Posted: 13 August 2011 18:35:19(UTC)

Joined: 19/06/2009(UTC)
Posts: 11

engineertony,
As much as I empathise with the lack of respect for STEM careers in the UK, my perception is that this is due to the very reasoning you are applying to this argument. The reputation of STEM in this country is not wholly undeserved. Until scientists and engineers can prove their worth with quantitative reasoning backed up with empirical evidence of their proposed utopia I don't see why joe public should believe any of our claims about raising standards of living etc etc. Scientists and engineers have a history of being extremely poor communicators while taking the easy way out of arguments with "you possibly couldn't understand something so complex". Joe Public finds this patronizing, and rightly so. Thus, I read your argument as advocation of an autocratic technocracy - one in which you (the expert engineer) tell me (apparently incapable of making a judgement), whether I agree or not, what I can and cannot use my money to buy - ie how to spend my money. This then leads to elitism, plato's republic and the guardian classes - which is arguably far more corrupt than the present democratic liberal financial system. To turn this argument on it's head let's rephrase the question: how does one measure the success of an engineer or scientist? Is it wealth? publications? citations? patents pending? Where he works?
The temptation in science and engineering is to talk of meritocracy where certifications are supposed to prove expertise. Yet these certifications say nothing of the effectiveness of the individual concerned. What's more, these certifications are a proxy for an educational currency which can be debased just like any other paper currency. The rise in fabrication of results in publications over the last twenty years is cause for alarm (e.g. MMR).

As recent events show, the problems in Britain are not really about services vs. making stuff. The problems are more about a complete lack of awareness of philosophy, particularly ethics and values, and I believe this transcends all levels of modern society.

What is British culture? What are British values? Do such things even exist in Britain today?
engineertony
Posted: 13 August 2011 19:14:21(UTC)

Joined: 24/05/2011(UTC)
Posts: 71

Jeremy

Nice bit of research, the Engineering Council, mmm. I like the bit "Engineering is one of the most satisfying and best rewarded careers in today's changing world." Would be interesting to see a 2011 report.
I won't question these statistics but I have read that many engineering graduates go straight into management jobs and never handle any practical work. Similarly I was surprised when I did my degree, I was 40 with lots of site experience, a large proportion of the staff where full time academics, batchelors, masters, Ph.D and lecturing. A degree and two years experience, a nice write-up from existing members will get you professional engineer status.

Mo

Yes we were put down by the "elite", but not by choice. And the brainwashing started at the grammar school, the rougher kids were told how they wouldn't make it, and the posh kids were encouraged, as their parents were giving to all the various funds for the school. As a young engineer I was rarely out classed in knowledge but always outclassed in social graces, my Lancashire accent didn't help, I made it to manager without playing golf, or rugby union or being a member of any backscratchers clubs, in those days I was surrounded by well spoken, over-confident right wing Tories and I was politically somewhere left of Mau Tse Tung, so not many dinner parties. Nowadays I'm politically neutral, it doesn't seem to matter, I was just as happy living in a street in a two up and two down with an outside toilet. I have fifty times more of everything than my parents but I'm not fifty times happier, and when I see the effects of constant lying, pretence, greed and corruption amongst these "elite" classes, it helps me to keep going on my pension.

Graham your #307

We agree on one point...."There is no substitute for long EXPERIENCE. You cannot learn it out of a book."
Jeremy Bosk
Posted: 13 August 2011 22:39:18(UTC)

Joined: 09/06/2010(UTC)
Posts: 1,316

engineertony

I have done a bit of rooting around for more up to date statistics on board member's professions without success so far.

There is quite a lot of interesting stuff here:
http://www.raeng.org.uk/...st/default.htm?TypeID=2

Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/...7658.html#ixzz1UweCf1T3

From drawing board to the boardroom

By Linda Anderson

Published: March 30 2008 16:27 | Last updated: March 30 2008 16:27

The days when engineers stuck to technical matters while managers dealt with strategy are in many companies a thing of the past.

With today’s engineers working on multi-million pound projects, sound business sense needs to go hand in hand with engineering skills. To bridge the gap, the Sainsbury Management Fellows’ Society has been running a scheme for more than 20 years that entices engineers into the boardroom.
===================

Tony

You can follow the link for a sensible article. Anyone who registers with the FT gets 30 articles a month free. It is worth the trouble. I pay the full subscription and get it all.

Also see:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/...b49a.html#axzz1Usw6flIP

This one is about how Tony Hayward wanted more engineers and fewer accountants at BP:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/...d2ac.html#axzz1Usw6flIP

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/...2340.html#axzz1Usw6flIP

I tried a search on the Economist but have run out of my weekly quota of ten free articles there.

The information we need is out there somewhere!
Anonymous Post
Posted: 13 August 2011 23:32:28(UTC)
Anonymous 1 needed this 'Off the Record'

engineertony at 306.
To help you with understand some of the economics-the Wild West Story is continued.
In the Wild West village a child falls ill.
Parents living in a village in the plains, go to the medicine man (a services provider) and he advises that the child with breathing problems could benefit with drinking some forest honey in a potion he prepared. There is no forest honey in the plains. The father is a farmer specialising in breeding pigs, so he tries to pay the medicine man, but has problems. In the barter world he could offer a pig for the services, but that is too much. So he asks the medicine man what he would like in return, and he states one chicken. He then goes around looking to change his pig for a number of chickens. On success, gives one to the medicine man, keeps one or two for himself, tries to change the others for the things his family needs.
On returning to the medicine man he is advised that the child could do with fresh mountain air.
He now has to travel to the nearest forest village to get forest honey(goods), and then take his child to the nearest mountain village to have his child spend time in mountain air, paying the guest house(services) for the stay. But on each occasion he has to barter. NOt a simple process. Imagine having to take a pig with you to pay for the guest house.
So, in order to make exchange of goods and services easier they introduce money, a medium of exchange-gold coins, which later become the gold standard.
But as trade grows, i.e the no of exchanges, shops appear e.g dispensing medicine (pharmacies) etc etc.
It is then found that not enough coins are in circulation, and so the modern banking system of fractional backing is born.
However by this time it is then deemed that there is not enough gold to cover all transactions and paper money not backed by gold is developed. To ensure that it is acceptable it is made legal tender-one MUST accept it as payment for a debt, otherwise one loses one's claim to the debt.
As you can see even in the most primitive societies there is a need for goods and services, as Jeremy rightly points out.
However from then on things continue to develop, the speed of money circulation increases, financial services develop, some a rip off, some of dubious quality, some miss sold etc.
In the process some services people make loads of money, and the wedge of pay is driven between the average earnings and the earnings of these people. As the wedge continues to grow,. more and more people become discontented (yourself included), and the banks in order to continue their pay justification, start gambling in their gambling casinos, so much so that they nearly bankrupt the world. Now everyone suffers except the gamblers.
And this the point in time that we are now at.
I hope the above is helpful to your understanding

Prof Eman
engineertony
Posted: 13 August 2011 23:47:13(UTC)

Joined: 24/05/2011(UTC)
Posts: 71

Mr. Fiat your #323

"Thus, I read your argument as advocation of an autocratic technocracy - one in which you (the expert engineer) tell me (apparently incapable of making a judgement), whether I agree or not, what I can and cannot use my money to buy - ie how to spend my money."

Did I imply that? I can only agree that we are very poor communicators, evidenced from my inputs to this thread, and the reaction to them. I don't think I said anywhere that engineers should take over the world, I've tried to show the injustice in the way the guys holding the cash boxes can do more or less what they want as they not only have the cash but the power, and the routes to power, that the wealth brings. Poor communication problem is due to the fact that while you were studying English Literature, Plato, ethics and philosophy, communication and presentation skills, I was buried in differential calculus, Laplace transforms and digital circuit design.

Far be it from me to tell people how to spend their money, I'm not too sure who is dictating how we spend our money at the moment, or who controls the media that controls us.

We do agree about certification, and alarming it is. In a certain middle eastern country I asked local "engineers" how they got their degrees when they obviously didn't know a scew from a screwdriver. It seems in the US they select certain universities where they can get the paper without doing the work, sometimes it's as simple as paying someone else to take the exams and presumably fill in for course work. We need a separate thread to debate the takeover of top positions by bluffers and rascals in all disciplines. I smiled when a panel on "Any Questions" talked of the moral decline amongst the young teenage looters. The moral decline started at the top, with lying and cheating being part of everyday political life. I refer to excessively highly paid bankers and financiers as crooks, and corrected by Jeremy, but these guys are crooks in a moral sense, not breaking the law but still wrong in most ordinary people's judgement. If a person is lying and cheating about his expenses, I don't think the rest of his life can be free from any wrongdoing. If Jeffery Archer can lie in court, what is the rest of his life like? In my experience when the rot comes to the surface it's been under the surface for a long time, no one suddenly turns crooked after years of correct living. Etc.

I've followed this thread from the beginnig but I don't have time to input continually, sadly I'm not much wiser now than at post #2, we do have a fairly stable system which works most of the time, economists cannot agree on what needs to be done, so I'm not too sure if we can add much to a "money versus making stuff" debate. In the last 50 years we have come a long way and I have lived through it all, it's been a wonderful time to be in engineering. Exploiting the third world seems to be working well for the moment, and moneylending has always been profitable, so I'll get back to my workshop, my bit of heaven to me, and count my blessings.





MrFiat
Posted: 14 August 2011 01:24:19(UTC)

Joined: 19/06/2009(UTC)
Posts: 11

engineertony,

" Poor communication problem is due to the fact that while you were studying English Literature, Plato, ethics and philosophy, communication and presentation skills, I was buried in differential calculus, Laplace transforms and digital circuit design."

I studied physics with electronics to doctorate level and have worked in telecoms for 15 years, but that doesn't mean (1) that there is nothing to be learned from literature and philosophy or (2) that I like the industry I work in or (3) that I am entitled to anything for having studied stochastic calculus and wrestling with the subtlety of tensor algebra. Despite the cynicism of both, at various times, public and private sector working life I do, however, still enjoy maths/physics/electronics.

Make no mistake, I don't believe economics is a science. It is dogma dressed up as science because calling it a science is a thinly veiled attempt to try to legitimize its aims. Consider the arguments about the Austrian School vs, Keynes. It's more philosophy than science. As proof of this if you are ever in London go to the Science Museum and for a laugh go find the 1950s treasury economic model. Then you'll understand the limits of economic modelling and why we have such large swings in fortune.

I will tell my children this: don't be afraid to take on a challenge and don't be afraid to be different from your peers. if you like maths, great, just don't expect to make any money out of it. Maths/Science won't help your popularity, but you shouldn't be living for that anyway. But do appreciate one thing. Maths is the language of the world. electronics is what makes it go around. Money is just something that travels at the speed of light in fiber optic cables, along with all the other forms of abundant information.

Other than my earlier post about "Fantasy Island" you might find it heartening to know that you are not alone in feeling that the system is rigged in someone else's favour. The classical economist David Ricardo stated exactly what the problem was - land rents - thus stating Ricardo's Law. Fred Harrison at The Renegade Economist has explained very clearly what the issues are and a possible solution to the problem - Also see Fred's book Ricardo's Law for further reading. The solution proposed is to only have a single tax - a tax on land owners weighted by proximity to economic activity - Land Value Tax or LVT. The problem is that this doesn't sit very well with the politicians' favourite model of fairness and aspiration - consumerism. The purpose of the school system would also have to be changed - it's purpose for the last 120 years has been to produce consumers. This would have to be changed along the lines of Ivan Illich's "Deschooling Society" to move from schooling towards self-education (via the Internet).

As explained by Fred the problem with the current banking system is that it's always going to boom/bust in current banking/land system - it's a feedback loop. Banks are simply waiting for the upturn and will profit again from increasing land valuations. Consumers will get tax free gains on their housing/land.

I mention this because as an engineer I would hope you can see that sometimes you have to look at a problem differently to make a better solution rather than tweaking an old broken system.

The banks are dinosaurs. Why do we need them at all? With the Internet and information abundance why should a privileged few have access to all the resources? Again, this is an engineering problem. All it needs is one person like Amazon, eBay, PayPal, Google or Swift to change the world forever. Think about it. Why can't google run my bank account, or amazon? More transactions go through google than through Lloyds or RBS.
What is stopping you from buying a few computers and setting up engineertony's on-line bank?

There are too many vested interests to change the system. That's why the entry bar is set so high.

Of course the government would argue the bar is set so high to protect customers. That's BS - the government should encourage thousands of small banks to spread the risk. Then if one goes up in flames who cares. Ring fence the deposits and hey presto, mini crisis over. The technology to build banks is ubiquitous. The government could help by splitting the ATM networks from the banks and forcing ATM networks to be run as separate companies.

My final contribution to this thread is this. Following the logic above it is clear the universal banking model is a very bad idea. This model allows a business to pursue a strategy of grabbing all resources possible. Combining "wealth management", investment banking and retail banking in one entity is somewhat immoral. This should never have been allowed to happen again.
Anonymous Post
Posted: 14 August 2011 12:34:45(UTC)
Anonymous 1 needed this 'Off the Record'

Dear all
Citywire has produced an interesting article, which I think you should all read-
Banking baddies : where are they now, to help illustrate some of the points made.

Prof Eman
Rose G
Posted: 16 August 2011 13:20:45(UTC)

Joined: 26/11/2009(UTC)
Posts: 112

I do not have an engineering background - hopefully my opinion is nonetheless as valid.

Our banking system is absed on greed, getting something cheap & selling it at hugely inflated prices. My main problem is with investment banking, which I believe should be sent to those who do not have morals, or priniciples like Switzerland, Channel Isles , Monaco or elsewhere where they provide anonymity for those who can afford to pay the price - quite frankly, these are individuals who vie with Hitler in terms of how monstrous their behaviours are.

The stock market is another area where insider trading goes on all the time, but because the FSA is funded by the very people who it is supposed to monitor/regulate, it is like asking a murderer to give himself up.

The latest financial crisis has demonstrated that the investment bankers are being paid huge amounts of money for simply what would be considered fraudulent behaviour in any other sphere of life, & because they are allowed to get away with fraud, they believe they have a right to the fraudulent amounts of money they can be paid - how on earth can they justify their salaries, bonuses etc?
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