as the longest standing resident financial advisor on the site, i think the “pro-plumber” camp is forgetting a major issue which is the risk to human capital in going into plumbing or electrical work versus office work. when was the last time you saw a 70 or 80 year old plumber or electrician. i can suffice to say never. when was the last time you saw a 70 or 80 year old financier, i saw 30 this morning.
not only can financiers work much longer as the brain tends to outperform the body over our lifespans but the need for disability insurance and the additional disability insurance cost for blue collar workers vs. white collar works would more than eradicate any postive NPV that plumbing has over finance when you disregard these costs.
its easy to say “become a high risk tightrope walker because you get like 100x the average wage of a CFA” but when you consider that the odds of dealth and disability are like a million times higher, and pay to address this higher risk, CFAs very very likely have a higher risk adjusted NPV in all situations except when compared to Phds or MDs and paths of that nature.
^ You saw all those 70 or 80 year old financiers because they’re still working. The 70 and 80 year old plumbers are retired and playing golf in FL or AZ.
It’s rotting over time in a stale environment as your senses dull and you sell your soul or physically breaking down through use and abuse and being dirty and sweaty. Everybody has their preference.
You’re missing an important point here. If someone had a good shot at a desired finance job, we’re not saying for that person to stop and be a plumber. It’s for the majority of other folks who have 0 relevant background and irrelevant experience that somehow believe the CFA exam is the path to riches.
i’m saying on day 1, if you’re smart and like to read and/or talk to people, CFA or a similar route is going to have a higher NPV AND meet your emotional needs, all risks even. if you’re too dumb to go CFA or similar route or you would rather use your hands and not your mind, then you may get more satifsfaction out of the trades but the NPV is almost certainly lower starting at day 1. this you have to accept is because of your preference or lack of intelligence.
your perception of the white collar world is pretty cynical. nobody i know thinks they’re selling their soul anymore than a plumber is. you’re both doing a job for pay. is the plumber selling his soul because the customer is too lazy to learn how to plumb and do it himself? no. is the advisor selling his soul because the customer is too lazy to learn how to manage his investments and/or source his own financial planning advice? no.
EDIT: its only when someone is doing something unethical that they are “selling their soul”. ethical dilemmas poses themselves in every field.
when you’re 70 or 80, most of your clients are friends. there’s no more shmoozing. there’s no more selling. they were sold 40 years ago, have no complaints and genuinely enjoy your company. the vast majority of the time, the advisor doesn’t even pay for the client as they are friends.
I have total discretion on multiple SMAs with varying policy statements. Boring it is not. My hours are extremely flexible, just depends on what is going on. Sometimes 80 hours, sometimes ten hours. Oh and I can work from anywhere, and I do. If the Rockies get dumped on, I’m gone for a couple of weeks. And I interact with carpenters, welders, and mechanic types multiple times a week through sports and if they saw this thread they would probably beat the shit out of each one of us.
Look, we can argue over anecdotal minutiae forever, but it’s not going to solve anything. I’m not arguing that we should all put down our laptops and 12c’s (or BA II Plus for those not smart enough to work with RPN). I’m arguing that society has hurt itself by attaching an unfair stigma to the trades. This stigma is partly to blame for the thousands of kids who enroll in college and don’t want to be there, including many who don’t even belong there. To a large degree, these are the kids who emerge with a huge pile of debt, a relatively worthless degree, and pretty shitty career prospects. Obviously not every one of those kids has the ability or the desire to work in the trades or have a successful career in the trades, but many of them could if teachers, parents, guidance counselors, AF’ers, etc. didn’t pound it into their heads that only stupid people become carpenters, plumbers, electricians, etc.
Blah blah blah, you do realize there are people who are not academically minded who would completely disagree with you and find this completely boring. Why is this so hard to understand for you. PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT. I’m sure there are people that love installing complex industrial plumbing systems. Jaysus.
Anyhow, I’m basically trying to say what Higgs is saying and can’t for the life of me undestand why everyone is so hellbent on trying to assert the superiority of their flourescent lit, hunched posture of an existance over that of someone who unclogs sh#t. People are different. They all want different things in a career. Yes, big office careers can have huge dispersion, but the weighted NPV’s are probably not that far off. You will always be better off playing to your strengths.
Unless you wind up being a smart guy who manages a contracting firm, which is a likely outcome for a smart motivated guy in the manual field. But if I’m smart and motivated and go into the CFA track, I’ll be average at best. Here we’re circling back to the big fish in a little pond case I was trying to make (keeping in mind this whole thing started when I was talking about being an entrepreneur of a small trades related business several threads ago). The problem is, the naysayers have somehow warped this thing into PM vs plumber when it was initially more of an MBA vs small business owner debate that got twisted around every which way.
^ +100. I do find it amusing that the AF big shots generally think that everyone has their finance job. For every Ghibli running equities from Aspen there are 1,000 guys sitting at their cube processing TPS reports for $25 an hour. You’ve got to look at median to median. And when someone with zero finance experience and no evidence of having the tools for success is weighing options, plumber is compelling vs TPS report filing. Obviously it’s not compelling against the position of Itera, Ghibli or even myself. But we’re not the median. I’d rather be an average plumber than be any of my staff… The second important point is how hard is it to succeed in finance vs trades. You need a great deal of skill and tons of luck to be an itera or Ghibli. That same level of skill applied to small business in an unsaturated market could be a recipe for profound success. But maybe they don’t have the base skill to even be a plumber, who knows. I’m guessing the business acumen to be a small business owner is there though.
i can agree with this. remove the stigma and maybe more kids who actually deep down could see themselves as a tradesperson actually do it. and if they were completely wrong in making that decision, they can always go work in IT and become a CFA charterholder later.
I would encourage my own kid who was unsure of their path to err on the side of caution. Much of the debate about NPV was dependent on having college debt / time invested vs not having that burden in the trades. The problem is once you’ve done your undergrad the calculus has all changed. Now you need the higher income. I think it’s easier to wait a few years then go to school (within reason, can’t wait until you’re 50 to career change) versus trying to unmake that decision.
Higgs and Geo just did a good job in the last two posts summarizing what I’ve been trying to say (apparently without success).
Only thing I’ll add is that I realize one job may be qualitatively better for one person or another (office vs trades), I’m not debating that. I also recognize that there is no universal right answer to that part of the equation, which some people seem to have trouble grasping.