wasn't it mostly harvard business school types who created the bubbles? poetic justice.
although i don't see much about the bschool in the following.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shahryar
From: Shahryar
| I.V. League Rich Harvard, Poor HarvardOnly a year ago, Harvard had a $36.9 billion endowment, the largest in academia. Now that endowment has imploded, and the university faces the worst financial crisis in its 373-year history. Could the same lethal mix of uncurbed expansion, colossal debt, arrogance, and mismanagement that ravaged Wall Street bring down America's most famous university? And how much of the turmoil is the fault of former Harvard president Larry Summers, now a top economic adviser to President Obama? As students demonstrate, administrators impose Draconian cuts, and construction is halted on an over-ambitious $1.2 billion science complex, the author follows the finger-pointing.... deleted |
7 comments:
Pardon me, but aren't you a b-school type? If you really think about it anyone except someone working in research, design, or manufacturing is a parasite.
This is what will happen when you give money to gamblers who call themselves as Hedge Fund Managers and Private Equity managers. View them with the lowest regard as that of someone who is betting at OTB.
yes, non carborundum (illegitimati), guilty as charged, so i do know these beasts up close and personal. in general, i agree with you that a) people who just push money around, b) people who just push lawsuits around, are parasites. VCs are not so bad, they do productive stuff. engineers, doctors, farmers are good as they make things or provide services.
this is one of the reasons there has been a lot of concern in the US about becoming a 'hollowed-out' economy.
we need folks to push money around - but even Adam Smith said of such folks that they do not create wealth by themselves, but only help wealth creation by others.
core banking is important in an economy for efficient allocation of savings - but the shadow banking (should we call it Nizhal Banking ??????) in the form of these hedge funds, merchant banks, derivatives etc. are the real villains. and it is the east coast that produced these jack-asses.
manufacturing is the core strength of any economy - as agriculture is the core security. take these away, and you are in deep trouble.
GW: Correction -- not just manufacturing but services as well.
nice one, ghostwriter, re. nizhal banking :-)
i agree bankers should exist to provide financing and funding. we do need a banking system.
it's when money itself becomes a trading commodity (if i remember right, currency trading is 10x bigger than securities trading in volume)that becomes indistinguishable from gambling. or when derivatives take over. recall that CDOs are about $60 trillion, insuring assets that were worth about $10 trillion.
case in point: remember the huge coup porsche achieved last year by cornering volkswagen shares? well, guess what, the porsche head was just ousted! pyrrhic victory, eh?
i have been reading aravind panagariya's pretty decent book on recent indian economic history, but he too echoes the conventional wisdom of "agriculture = bad, industry = good". (no, san, i am not waving a red flag in front of you :-))
Actually, I am a parasite myself, that's why I provide encouragement to hosts.
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