As someone from the UK, this line stood out:
Managers at Buc-ee’s, a Texas-based chain of stores, can make more than experienced doctors earn in Britain.
Managers at Buc-ee’s, a Texas-based chain of stores, can make more than experienced doctors earn in Britain.
I'd be surprised if a single Buc-ees location had 100 employees, let alone 400.
We know the healthcare system in Britain has been suffering from neglect for some time and AFAIK doctors often either work for the NHS or are independently contracted by them. Also, while Buc-ees technically a convenience store, it also a gas station (they held the record as the world largest with 120 gas pumps)with a large deli, tons of groceries, and the cleanest bathrooms you will ever find off the highway. They do a lot of business and have a large team of of very busy workers. Their income is well earned. That said, healthcare workers are very underpaid in Britain and have been for some time, but it's not fair to compare the incomes while trying to diminutize Buc-ees by simply labelling it as "convenience store".
I do like the idea that there are well paid jobs that don't require many years of schooling. Seems good for social mobility.
Everything is interconnected. If your country is the only one on the planet that is doing well, it will not be long until resentments start brewing. If inequality stretches too far, eventually it results in instability. You can see this now with the amount of people immigrating to richer countries, both legally and illegally, and the resulting instability it causes, both in the countries that people immigrate to and those that they have left. Taken to the extreme, it eventually leads to wars between countries over resources. The United States might have the biggest military in the world, but it can't win a war against the rest of the world combined.
This is why Joe Biden came out and said that it wasn't the United States economy that worried him, but the economical weakness in the rest of the world. If people think that the United States prints money only to look after the interests of the United States, it will lose its status as the reserve currency of the world. This is already starting to happen, with China making strong inroads in Africa and Latin America with disgruntled countries that have been left behind. If America loses influence in these countries, it's power diminishes and it will only be a matter of time until it is your doctors who are being paid less than convenience store managers in foreign countries. You might not be alive to see it, but your grandchildren might be. It was only 90 years ago that it was the UK and not the United States that was the dominant world power.
Ray Dalio is quite insightful on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8
> I do like the idea that there are well paid jobs that don't require many years of schooling. Seems good for social mobility.
Only if those jobs require a similar amount of years of experience to attain. Otherwise people stop pursuing the jobs that require many years of education in favour of earning more money in those that don't and your systems start to collapse as everyone chases the easy money.[1] As Dalio explains in the video above, it is investment in education which is the first step for those countries that begin to ascend and grow.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/08/nhs-staff-qu...
Perhaps it's your socialized medicine that is causing doctors to be commoditized and undervalued.