What the...?

So I'm sitting here writing a paper and I have the TV on.  All of a sudden, a commercial for theladders.com grabbed my attention.  Their tag line is: "100k jobs for 100k people."

100k people????

I guess this kind of elitist ego-stroking attracts their target audience, which is a good thing from a marketing perspective.  However, the attitude, which seems to be pervasive in American culture, that people's worth to society is based on how much money they make drives me up a wall.  I know lots of people who feel this way and for the life of me I cannot understand it.

The argument typically goes something like: "The free market determines salaries.  People will get paid in accordance with how much they are worth on the market.  If society really values the work someone does, they will get paid more."

So does our society really value ambulance-chasing lawyers, airline pilots, and plastic surgeons over teachers, civil servants, and other important, but lesser paying jobs?  Perhaps so, but really societal values don't have all that much to do with it, in my opinion.  Jobs that pay more pay more because they require specialized skills.  There are fewer people able to do those jobs due to the specialized training they require.  Additionally, a lot of high paying jobs demand abnormal schedules, additional workload, or being on call and an increase in salary is one way to make sure that people stay in those jobs.

Anyways, that's my rant of the day.  The amount of money you make has little to do with how awesome of a person you are, or how valuable you are to society.  /rant.

*And yes, my opinions on this probably have to do with the fact that I am the daughter of two people who do things that I consider socially valuable that do not make a lot of money, relatively speaking...and that I want to do the same thing "when I grow up."