"overhead", i.e. administration. I told someone that I was a postdoc, he estimated my salary at first six figures. Then I told him down. He said 75k. When I told him 45k, his eyes bugged out and he said 'there's something wrong here'.

I mean, I come from an excellent pedigree, too, top 10 undergraduate, top 10 grad school, and I currently work at a place where my boss is a nobel laureate. (He makes at least 250k, according to the place's 990 forms)

However, my going price gets diluted by the idiots running around with rubber-stamped PhDs. Maybe there needs to be a 'brain drain', if we can drain those people selectively somehow.

I'm really confused - why don't Ph.D.'s with excellent pedigrees just get paid more money than "idiots running around with rubber-stamped PhD.s"? Maybe the market doesn't see such a big difference..

I think you are right lost_marbles. The difference between a PhD with an excellent pedigree and a rubber-stamped PhD should be their publication records. The problem would still exist if these rubber-stamped PhDs weren't there, I think. As a postdoc, you're going to get paid zilch, period.

This is a trend that stretches well back 50 years, some say to the establishment of the postwar DoD funding system. I recommend Paula Stephan's How Economics Shapes Science[1] for a comprehensive view of both the underpaid and increasing budget trends you mention.

(The bottom line is that the money goes to administration costs as mentioned, leading institutions to expand to stay relevant, thus building more buildings and hiring more PIs with full expectation for them to be funded via grants. Meanwhile, the average researcher's earnings are mostly unchanged.)

[1]http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Shapes-Science-Paula-Stephan...

It goes towards hiring more administrators to chase that grant money they need to make the budget even bigger.