One Hundred Four: Realtors

One of the principal factors in keeping ethical and professional standards high in various occupations is setting up barriers against entry into the profession. Usually these barriers take the form of educational requirements. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, clergy, all have strict education requirements without which one cannot enter the field. The easier it is to get into a profession, the more sleaze bags and incompetents you get. Take for example, realtors.

Nowhere is the idiot factor more obvious than in real estate. Every housewife or failed car salesman is a "real estate professional." In my thirty plus years of buying and selling real estate, and practicing real estate law, I have run across maybe three good realtors. Most of them don't even know how to pronounce the word (they usually say "real-la-tor").

As this is being written, I am trying to help my son buy a condo to qualify for the Obamaramadama $8K tax credit. Unfortunately, we have to deal with realtors representing (or misrepresenting) sellers. In all cases thus far, the realtors have been total morons, incapable of understanding the most rudimentary basics of real estate transactions, let alone more exotic deals such as short sales.

I wish some of these ersatz professions would have some stricter requirements about whom they let in.

One Hundred Three: Government Jobs And Pay

First of all, why do people go to work for the government? The main reasons are benefits and job security. Everyone agrees that the benefits are fantastic. And how many government workers do you know who have been fired? Probably very few, if any. You have to be a real screw-up to be let go by the government. Mediocrity to incompetence is not only tolerated in government work, it is encouraged. So to get fired, you have to be outside that range. In fact, the occasional well-qualified government employee probably has a better chance of being fired than the typical under-qualified. If you're smart and know what you're doing, it would be difficult to function and exist with a bunch of morons. You would stick out like a sore thumb, and make everyone else look bad.

Second, why do government employees appear to be paid more than private sector counterparts? Maybe because the pay HAS to be higher in order to even get people to apply. Have you ever watched the faces of people going to work at government offices? They look like they're going to an execution. At some level, these people know they are existing in positions which provide no value (other than to themselves alone) to society, have no positive impact. They are a drain on the economy, rather than a contribution. And once a person is entrenched in a government career, they are unlikely to ever to advance in positions of authority and responsibility. They will get cost of living increases, but will never get the structural increases which come from career advances. In other words, their station in life will never change.