Why are surgeons paid more than brick layers?

[Yo_Mama]

191. Huh?

I don't think so, thinking of the doctors I know. And a lot of the surgeons are immigrants.

I think you are off in some fantasy place. Go to a hospital sometime and look at the faces.

Most doctors start out with a ton of debt, but surgeons have an even longer time in training and start out with way more debt. Their lives don't really start until their 30s and by then they have racked up a ton of debt.

You cannot directly compare the pay of bricklayers and surgeons because the upfront investment cost (training and years of being very poorly paid while you train), plus deferred earnings, make the two profession incomparable.

Yes, both are hard work. If you compared the expected lifetime return of a lot of blue collar professions you'd be surprised at how little more the "prestigious" profession makes.

You know what? Some doctors, especially those in the high-suit professions in areas with low insurance ratios who do a lot of charity/gov insurance work are being forced to drop their malpractice insurance and strip themselves of assets (they usually make over absolutely everything to the wife) to continue doing their work. I've never met a bricklayer who had to do that.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5234637/ns/health-health_care/t/doctors-going-without-malpractice-insurance/#.TzCVbYHpiSo

NOTHING comparable about the two professions really, except that they are both important to society and they both are hard work. Being a surgeon is almost always harder work than being a bricklayer, and a bricklayer used to have more security, more off hours and more leisure. Now with demand so low in the construction professions, and with cheaper construction methods winning out, bricklayers just don't get as much work.