To be clear, I am not defending the people who compromised the global financial system for personal gain, especially since their successors (such as myself) must now deal with the regulatory fallout, lack of public trust, and other negative consequences of their actions. I am just saying that they did exactly what they were supposed to do - they maximized their expected NPV at the expense of others, which is ultimately what finance people do.
^ I think you are overthinking this. CEOs are not the smartest nor most competent people in an organization. They’re good at politics and networking, they have the right resume and people to vouch for them, they got the PR skills, they went to the right schools and were at the right place at the right time. Yes, intelligence is part of the package but it isn’t as important as most people think. It’s naive to think that among the hundreds and thousands of people that can do the job, the most competent was picked to lead the ship.
^ I agree, intelligence is just the bare minimum to be in this discussion, it doesn’t really qualify you for anything, and hence it is meaningless that the people involved were “really, really smart”.
I don’t think CEOs are the most intelligent people in the organization and I never said that. They are just, in general, competent people who happened to fall into that role due to some combination of personal characteristics and circumstances. The failures of Lehman Brothers, Wachovia, Bear Stearns, etc. are hard to attribute to the deficiencies of any individual. Instead, what happened was due to some combination of many parties acting in their own, mostly short term, interests. If you had different CEOs in these organizations at the time, it is possible that the outcomes would not have changed.
You are reading my response as saying that intelligence solely placed certain people in the position to influence the outcomes of these events. This was not what I was trying to say. Instead, I was expressing my belief that failure is not always a result of incompetence. It can also be the result of risk taking or just participation in a self destructive system. If you had a chance to win a huge sum of money by risking your company’s shareholders’ money, would it be irrational for you to take it? This is the decision that many people in finance made leading up to 2007/2008, and if they could do it again, they would.
you are kidding yourself…if you have kids you want nothing but the best for them… and if you can afford it, sending them to private school where they have better teachers and better conenctions with a better chance to go to a great college is a no-brainer…and the furthest thing in the world from “wasting money”
^ It is a waste of money. For $40k, I could hire an elite hockey coach and have my kid play in the NHL. That’s a way bigger payoff than some chump Wall Street nonsense. 
Just asking the gate agent politely is often enough. When I travel alone, I always jokingly say to the gate agent: “I won’t mind if you bump me to first class.” Works more often than you would think.
I fly Southwest as often as possible. No first class option.
American public school’s would be awesome if they didn’t group 1k plus student’s at once.
The facilities, teaching etc is all top notch but nowhere in the world do countries make schooling a miniature college experience. They’re just too young.
All those High school teenage nutjobs wouldn’t feel so lost or worthless in a smaller environment.
I think most western countries have big high schools. It’s not just an American thing.
No, that doesn’t make sense. Wanting the best for your kids doesn’t mean throwing every last cent at them just to increase their chance of success marginally. Especially when the free option can be very good.
It totally and completely depends where you live. If you have good local public schools you likely have very high property taxes. Philadelphia area is a study in this.
The property taxes on the “main line” outside Philadelphia where top schools like Lower Merion and Radnor are located are outrageous. The teachers are there for the career and are excellent. In Philadelphia proper the property taxes are extremely low (comically so) and the public schools, other than a few exceptions, are much worse. Many people choose to send their kids to private school in this area.
You pay for it one way or another. You can pay higher cost for housing and taxes and live in a good school district or you can pay less and send your kid to private school. Most people don’t want to roll the dice with Strawberry Mansion High if they can help it.
Nope. Only American and Canadian. Did some stupid project on the feasability of good public schools in the developing worlds.
Entire Europe and even Australia don’t pack so many teenager’s into a single place. The upper end is around 2k but that is from 1’st grade to 12’th. Some reigon’s in North America average out that much in High School itself…
“Private” vs. “public” school is just one kind of distinction. In the end, most parents who are able will pay for quality schools. Many people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars extra to live in areas with good public schools. This is a lot like paying for private school.
Whether it’s worth paying for private school if you already have access to good public schools obviously depends on circumstances. One of the schools that the guys in my office were talking about has 80 kids per class, and it sent 10 people to Princeton last year. Either the kids in this school are just brilliant, or the school is doing something special. Most likely, it’s some combination of the two. If I have $200k that I will die with, maybe I should invest it in my kid’s school instead.
Not all private schools are worth the money. My two elder sisters went to expensive private school. These places were just an aggregation of affluent kids who did not take school as seriously as they could have. If I had to choose the school for my kids, I would not send them to this kind of school. However, I would seriously look into some super school which sends 50% of its class to Ivy League colleges.
So, no pressure then…
I agree, and that’s part of my point, if you are already paying for a good school district through higher taxes, the tradeoff of public v private is even bigger as you’re paying twice for the private school. If you live in a crappy school district, of course, the best option is to send your kids to a private school. There is no blanket solution of “always send your kids to a private school if you can afford it” as mcap11 is suggesting.
Funny.
I escaped women’s forum because every other thread is either “Public vs Private”, “SAHM vs WOHM” or “Burbs vs City”
What us SAHM and WOHM?
City or 'Burbs is an awesome question. City hand’s down for me…
Stay At Home Mom and Work Out of Home Mom
They have tons of funny acronyms
The only two options are to be at home though. Don’t you want to lean in?