HA!
America's elite are all one big, happy family of group-think jag offs.
Take a look at the U.S. Supreme Court over the past 30 years. The vast majority of justices come from 5 Law Schools - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia and Stamford.
Are there really no other smart people from any other walk of life?
Take a run down the Managing Director list at Goldman Sachs (and the former Bear Stearns and Lehamn Brothers). Same universities (business school rather than law school). I have some experience in the matter - once upon a time I worked for Bear Stearns.
(By luck and happenstance I got hired, though I was nothing more than a self educated wise guy. Actually Bear liked to promote the idea that they hired guys like me, they called us PSD's (Poor, Smart with a Deep desire t be rich. The Chairman coined the term and nobody wanted to argue with him) and to their credit there were a few smart, token working class guys floating around. I don't want to sound ungrateful - I was extremely well paid, and the experience I got and the connections I made I could not have recreated elsewhere - but there was still a glass ceiling of sorts for guys like me. I was the number one producer of new clients in private client services (PCS) in the firm. Numero Uno. No one even close. I knew how to make it RAIN. But you were limited in earnings potential in PCS, the big dough was in mortgage backed securities (MBS) trading and sales, and I was an ambitious young man. When I went down to see the folks in MBS, they told me I was "Not Qualified". I said "how much more qualified can I be? I produce more new business than the other 500 guys in PCS." To which Craig S. said: "I have 20 guys with MBA's from Harvard". And there it was. I was a proven rainmaker and producer, but I never summered on the Cape, I played football and boxed instead of tennis and golf, and washed dishes at the local Country Clubs instead of being a Member... Not that I expected another outcome, after all I was taking a long shot at a job EVERY Wall Street maniac wanted. The worker bees in that department were making $3 million+ per year, and the big cheese, Warren S., $20 - $30 MILLION (he eventually got fired and had to get by with $400 million or so). Not an easy position to land. But his dismissal of my accomplishments in favor of glorified, part-time group training irked the sh*t out of me. On the way out I told Craig I couldn't think as slow as him if I tried, not if I were drugged, not if I was asleep, and I would wipe the floor with his minions in chess, cross word, concentration, any intellectual competition he could think up; I never worried about "burning bridges"... I was only too willing to walk around with a can of napalm and a blow torch... and I don't think these guys were used having someone talk to them like I did.... When my boss up in PCS heard that I was trying to catch on with MBS he was furious... but when he heard what I told Craig on the way out he laughed hysterically, and all was "sort of" forgiven. I moved on to a firm that let me run the show, but without Bear's capital the opportunity was not quite the same. A few years later it seemed to me that if I wanted to be the big cheese I would have to give the job to myself and I opened my own shop. Little did I know that the MBS group at Bear Stearns were the very guys that eventually blew up the world financial system. Funny how things work out.)
Our system, corporate, legal, political, "educational" favors an entrenched ruling class in ways innumerable to count, "but the group-think" thing going on at the U.S. Supreme Court is nothing short of APPALLING. Especially since these are APPOINTED positions.
There is also no Constitutional requirement that a Supreme Court Justice must be a lawyer. Have you ever read the U.S. Constitution? It is just not that long or complicated. Perhaps you would argue about precedent and decisions. Like what? The Dred Scot case?
But what do I know. I MUST be dumb. After all, I didn't go to Harvard.
Libertariananimal (at) gmail
15 comments:
I used to think it was all about merit, but that was just youthful naivete. People operate in gangs/cliques. The country clubbers are simply looking out for their own because they can. If you were in charge, wouldn't you prefer to hire/work with PSDs as opposed to the Cape Cod prep set?
Perhaps.
In the end, it worked out well for me... better than I would have had any right to expect given my background and quirks.
The point is is that the entrenched Liberal elite come out of these universities and work for Goldman et al, and they nearly brought us to the point of martial law last year.
Yet we are still going back to the same playbook.
1) You didn't mention how many people you've met in your life who were "like you." I'll bet not many. That was the biggest surprise to me leaving college -- how most of the world is indeed average, with average fears and average decision-making ability and who shoot themselves in the foot as often as they win $500 in the scratch-off lottery.
2) All the great legal decisions of human existence have already been decided. For instance, killing someone is very, very wrong. :) What is left, like abortion and affirmative action, have almost no basis in our constitution, and are "decided" year-by-year based on what the population will tolerate. But the rules for living have grown in complexity with the size of the population. You do need lawyers to interpret the expanding list of rules.
3) I do think there is something to be said for the college/post-college experience. The complexity above does indeed exist, and requires "trained" people to make it work. I would also like to think I do make better, risk-adjusted decisions than many people do. People could live so much better lives, and I think my job is to at least try to set an example where I can. If they don't want to listen, it's a free country. :)
The established order gets shaken to the core at long, though fairly regular intervals. During these periods we see who can really think for themselves as they are the roughly 20% of the elites who get to keep their position. It’s my contention that we are in such a period now, though my hopes for a peaceful resolution (most likely through a mass bankruptcy) are quickly fading. The problem I see is that we have an elite who have dug in their heels to resist any change yet change is inevitable, several of the problems facing us are irresolvable. Once they are removed the new elites who claw their way to the top will take the country in a different direction; hopefully, but not necessarily, a better direction.
Bur:
There are MILLIONS of very bright folks walking around this country whose talents are passed over because they lack the "pedigree", the family finances, luck, whatever... and that's OK, life is not fair and it is up to us to battle it out.
I was only telling part of my story as an aside, so you can get to know me better through my experiences.
The sad fact is is that 1/3 of of our federal government, the Judiciary, are an absolute cluster f*ck of "group think"
Dan:
I am VERY hopeful for our future. I foresee a very turbulent transition, but my bet is that here, in America, we will evolve into a freer, more democratic, fairer, environment of personal responsibility and enlightened self interest. I hope to live to see it.
Until the next turn of the wheel...
Bur:
In truth, most people get in to these kinds of jobs with "qualifications" that in reality are equal to toilet paper. I got in because I LOOKED right. No kidding. When I was young I was very tall, athletic in physique, good looking, and I could talk the balls off a brass monkey. I also had moxie and and chutzpah in spades (enjoy your youth, you don't know what you have till its gone... but it was good while it lasted).
That's how I got in. I STAYED in by out reading everybody about everything in the markets. Today, as then, the only guys permitted to think "outside the box" are the proprietary traders, hedge fund managers, etc... the guys the public hears from? Group-think jag-offs.
There's always gonna be someone better/worse than you in everything.
You were a tall, gregarious ambitious smart guy (optimal IQ range is 130-150 - you're probably on the higher end of this) whose main disadvantage was coming from a lower class. Big deal. The IQ/social skills combo is the best combo and makes it hard to fail.
Check out the Chris Langan interview on Youtube to see how an excess of smarts coupled with a dysfunctional childhood equals stunted success (by conventional definition).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0
Eric:
That is a truly disturbing video.
In any event, I was trying to explain to Bureaucrat some of my circumstances, but this ain't about me... this is about the sad fact that the judiciary branch of our federal government has run amok, how it is swollen with group-think, and how easy it would be to change this. If only we gave a damn.
Right on the money, Greg.
Christopher Lasch wrote some good books on the ideology of "upward mobility," meritocracy, etc.
You had/have merit without the "ocracy."
At least your life is interesting, and you have a good family and character. Better that than conventional hyper-success and no character.
Our system is dangerous partly because of the illusion of upward mobility: Harvard lets in a few people of color, or from poverty stricken neighborhoods, while the huge majority of the population goes to state schools or community colleges. Look at Obama. Is he really the best the nation could come up with? Give me a break. But he went to the right schools, met the right people.
The problem with inbred "meritocracies" occurs when they implode due to incompetence. Let's home that people with real talent AND character will be allowed to come to the fore. And yes, CHARACTER is as important as talent. There were many talented Nazis in Germany, but they certainly didn't have much character
Pub,
Are you dead on! It seems to me that as the elite have moved to the left that the concepts of right, wrong, honor, and duty have been deprecated in favor of expediency. Character is all that separates us from the third world.
When my youngest daughter was in high school, one of her teachers told here she was the most ethically clear student he'd ever met. I would not be prouder if she became president.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Have a watch of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU
The one that always gets me are the cries of diversity. Diversity ain't just different colors. I want diversity of training and socio-ec diversity.
Like most places, we have some great, wealthy towns up here in Mass. A black kid that goes to the best private schools, than the best private colleges, that is nurtured in a gated community with nannies and country clubs and summers abroad or on Nantucket brings no diversity merely because of his skin color.
I agree with you. I want true diversity. I want people in positions of power who washed dishes, mowed lawns and painted houses.
Re: for every "entrenched Liberal elite" you complain about (why the hate? U r too young to be so angry. ;-)) I can show you a family like the Bush's.
Politics is a game to keep the plebeians distracted while the elite of both parties enrich themselves. Bread n' circus man, bread n' circus.
Abraham:
Please, by ALL means, show me a Liberal Elite family like the Bushes. George H.W. Bush was/is one of the best human beings I have ever met, and the best diplomat the White House has EVER seen. I worked for his New York campaign against Dukakis (we lost NY...) in '88 (during which I met GWB on a couple occasions, and he was a heck of a nice guy, too).
"show me a Liberal Elite family like the Bushes...."
how about the kennedy's ?... har har har Greg, you asked for that.
actually the kennedy's have a leg up on the bush family, being descended from a mafia allied bootlegger, bankster, and stock manipulator. whereas, the bush family fortune came from all those gold fillings from the nazi death camps.
and HW's legacy ? guided the seriously bad drug war under good ole' boy Reagan. remember that, their still fighting that one. thirty five years and how many countries have fallen to organized crime groups ? how many cities in the US are in the grips of drug gangs ?
look he may actually have been a nice person and not just a slick politician, but the guy was a serious moron, and he and his son did more than anyone else to destroy this country....
and, i mean destroy, that damage is permanent. the pigs in washington don't have either the will, the morals or the backbone to think about anything but a quick buck for themselves and their friends.
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