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.

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."

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,

" 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.

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?