Securitized mortgages were priced "accurately" to the extent that there was strong, almost inexhaustible, demand for assets with the right rating from paid ratings agencies. This had unpleasant consequences for many of us.

Markets will never magically produce the socially beneficial outcome. They efficiently allocate resources along lines imposed by incentives on market actors, and the resulting supply and demand. If the demand is insane, so are the market-allocated outcomes.

I didn't make the argument that our current structure is "the best" or that the status quo is perfect. Only that sufficient supply/demand for managers exists vis a vis engineering staff to drive management wages up.

In short: it's clear that managers are more highly-valued.