Well, since its not my job to fill the position, I haven't been looking. Seriously, the argument of "well, name someone better qualified" doesn't fly. Just because we don't think he is qualified doesn't mean we are walking around with a list of people who are more qualified. The question was whether the guy is qualified for the job. IMO, no, he lacks the real work experience that comes with having held a real job IN THE INDUSTRY.
Interesting that I give a reason and your dispute is that I 'hate'. Guess it could have been the race card instead.... I think anyone that surrounds themselves with people that are entirely from the same school/area/profession are likely to be getting poor advice. If you choose the best advisers it will yield a naturally varied crowd. Obama has a penchant for academics and an aversion to commercial experience it would appear. Bush in comparison seemed to overly draw from Texas and his fathers administration and that yielded such bad choices as Harriet Myers for the Supreme Court. Most people suffer from this to some degree. But an opinion was asked and I answered with my reasoning.... ooops I mean hatred
Anyone ever see the 1970s film "Road to Abilene" It was used as a training film to prevent "group think". Army still uses it in leader training. Basically a family sitting around in 105 deg TX heat and the dad says, "Hey let's go to Abilene" No one wants to refute dad so everyone agrees but secretly no one (including dad) wants to sit in a car for 1.5 hours and sweat while driving to a town that no one wants to go too. Finally, mom spoke up and said he didn't want to go...everyone was relieved. Sorta sounds like what you are describing. Not sure if it is true, but that is what came to mind.
That is one effect. Also I think that if you are trying to hire 50 of the best programmers for example and get 49 thirty year old white guys that you should examine your criteria. It is possible your selection process is fine but statistically it is highly doubtful. So you should examine the process to ensure you are hiring the best not for nonsense reasons like diversity. Contrast that with a process that selects people from 20-70 that is weighted toward the younger age which might actually be accurate due to the pool of candidates. Also in the example if you get 50/50 male/female your process is possibly flawed as the candidate pool is heavily slanted toward males (just check degrees granted by gender)
You contrarians are pretty damn funny. I bet if Obama exhumed Leo Strauss himself and put him on the Fed you would complain. The case that the role of the Fed is in any way similar to basic business finance mechanics is pretty laughable. It's basically saying that a company's ledger is as complex as the entire global economy routed through all the state-sponsored international currency exchanges. But please, carry on with your resolute philosophical condemnation of all things academy.
i wonder why it always seems to be stupid people mocking academia? as if nobody can receive any joy from exploring something new in their field of interest that has never been thought of before... or nobody is allowed to gain personal satisfaction from teaching others and passing on knowledge... teaching gives a ton of personal pride back to those that do. not everyone is on the great paper chase. i never understood this mentality at all. as if because i was an economics student now i MUST become an investment banker and maximize my work/time return, and can have no other pursuits... as if i could find no other path in life to use those skills. in case many of the simpletons in this post haven't realized... being an economist is 99% academic in nature, and almost all theoretical based on academic research/forecasting/modelling, and that is JUST the type of person that needs to be in this job. only one other person on page 1 even said this already, but nobody seemed to listen. that whole "we need someone with real world experience" bullshit is a nice little talking point saying that in turn gives hoakie ass people like sarah palin and "joe the voting coal miner" grounds to even get any attention at all. it tries to reward being at or below average intelligence by trying to chastize somebody who is clearly above average, and therefore not "one of us". like some kind of great payback by the dumbass masses by calling people "elites" and trying to label high level thought as something undesireable. this dude can probably move objects with his thoughts while some hillbilly senator gets to say he's unqualified... only in america.
Your insulting line of complete whiney assed bullshit was so good right up to that last retarded sentence. Damn shame to ruin such a good post with that moving shit with thoughts garbage. :tut:
So you would feel more comfortable flying in a plane that was designed and built by a professor with a double doctorate and tenor instead of an engineer that has actually worked in the field and has gained first hand knowledge based on real world experience. Getting degrees and teaching does not mean that you have the ability to apply that knowledge.
how are you equating a job which is purely in thoughts and on paper (economist), with a job that requires physical action and movement (flying a plane)? that is a totally ridiculous and illogical comparison. i GUESS... the economist would need to have the finger dexterity to be able to hit the buttons on a keyboard, or a calculator, or be able to flip pages correctly... if you wanna be technical. p.s. - the guy who designed that plane... probably never flew one. just a thought.
Gotta say I think the job being discussed is going to require experience weighted toward the academia. Those fanancial/economic types are a weird bunch anyway. They probably have more trouble finding the back of the plane much less be able to fly one or build one.
Washington itself is theoretical in nature. Not much of what they are pushing out of there is working in flyover country. Academia is great in theory, in practice, not so much. I've met a few certified geniuses I wouldn't trust to butter toast. I dont' know if this guy is right for the job or not. I do understand the skepticism regarding academia.
Since you don't grasp that analogy...... Would you rather invest money with a professor, that has never made a trade, as long as he is at the top of his field in the academic world. After all he is the most educated and clearly has a clear understanding of how the markets should work.
One thing that you have to look at is the fact that those people that have gone on to become leaders learned the "theories" of how to become successful at life while their teachers still simply teach those theories without knowing how to make them work in real life. That's part of our current administration's failings. They have all these academics that are just full of "theories" but they don't have any practical knowledge of how to apply them. One of the things that practical experience teaches you is how to look at past applied theories, and their ramifications, and compare those actions to the theories that you wish to try.
I disagree somewhat. I learned a good bit about building and construction in college, but the education didn't stop with the theoretical knowledge learned in the academic environment. There is a lot learned from "real world" application of theoretical knowledge that cannot be relpicated any other way.