http://www.650and408homes.com/articles/2006/art_26.html Obama went to Harvard, didnt he? Yep, those elite ivy leaguers sure have their fingers on the pulse of the economy.
Because people have been trained to believe that just because someone went to a more expensive school, that they are smarter than them when its actually the opposite...they basically just paid more for pretty much the same product. Case in point is starbucks. People will pay $3 for a cup of coffee at Starbucks, when they can make the same cup (perhaps even a better tasting cup) for 25 cents at home.) Why do they do that? Because they have been trained to believe that if you pay $3 for a cup of coffee, its better. (even if its not.)
people who earn their way into an ivy league are in general way smarter than people who attend a random state school or community college. all the people that get in simply due to connections are about the equivalent. don't mix the two because they are quite different pools of people. if i was paying for advise and expertise in any field- (think consulting or investment banking) in general i would much rather pay a 8% commission to someone that earned their way into an ivy league than a 2% commission to someone who went to my local community college. the comparison to starbucks is just foolish because anyone can walk into starbucks and buy a coffee- not anyone can post the grades and test scores necessary to gain admittance into an ivy league school.
Good post and on point. Alot of the criticism towards the econ profs at these Ivy League Schools is warranted. That's not to say that they aren't exceptionally bright individuals, but they are political shills. Everybody basically knows that economics has become such a corrupted pseudo-science, but that should not malign the overall reputation of the academic institutions. Like you've mentioned, it's an apple and oranges comparison between gaining admissions into a Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc and a local community college. In general, Peil is basically a dipshit.
I'd rather be governed by the first 100 names in the Boston phone directory than 100 graduates of Harvard (or Yale!)
One big pitfall in human thinking is that the good answers have to be the complicated ones. If you get to know some people that are the ones that come up with the very simple but good answers consistently then you are in good company.