intelligent people discuss the issue:

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/04/true_true_true.html#comments

we discuss the issue:

http://crazyontap.com/topic.php?TopicId=17509&Posts=17

Dude. What are you talking about? We're not professional economics professors like Tyler Cowen or economics writers like Surowiecki (who replaced Krugman at Slate.com and is dating their poetry editor? or is he the New Yorker writer? or both) and "Jane Galt" (who writes for The Economist, and actually wrote the original link quoted in the CoT thread above).

James Surowiecki > I suspect that increase is driven in large part by the persistence of atavistic and inefficient practices, which, coupled with the explosion in the size of capital markets, has made it possible for people to skim from a much bigger pool.

Is quite similar to what strawberry wrote.

Colm and STH's points were well done too. Chill out. We did pretty well. It was an intelligent conversation for a bunch of computer geeks.

Thanks for the link BTW. It's interesting that one side says the accumulation is caused by the efficiency of the market and the other side by its inefficiency.

STH says "people should pay taxes"

and Colm makes up total bullshit about investment bankers getting paid through shell companies.

A lot of trader's bonuses are sheltered offshore, and contractors manage their tax down through shell companies.  I'm not sure how common this is in IBD.

really? what banks do that?

Even "Jane Galt" admits that particular discussion was above par.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2007/04/explaining_banker_salaries.cfm

where is jane galt in that link?

The Economist Free Exchange blog.

"professional economics professors"

HAR!!