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Lmao, money, to people like big brother and wutang are measures of success, yet power, is where success truly lies. Like at the people who are RUNNING, not funding, you have them quite tangled my good man.
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<p>No hyakku, I explicitly stated that there are many ways to 'success', but that most Americans aspire to at least a comfortable lifestyle. But come on, don't you think money and power are at least intimately related? If you saw Michael Moore's new movie on how the health insurance companies bribed the heck out of Congress with 6 figure offers, you can at least get a clue that money is used in fairly interesting ways. You are explicitly stating "where success truly lies", but I have never made such definitive statements. </p>
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Like at the people who are RUNNING, not funding, you have them quite tangled my good man.
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<p>Uh, you mean like Venture Capitalists giving rise to the many Silicon Valley Tech firms that exist out there, and if they didn't exist, what would happen these people who 'run' the companies? Or like the Investment bankers that give life to an IPO that could one day become something Microsoft of the like? Oh, and those pesky VCs tend to reap off the success of profitable firms, often times knocking off original authority and replacing them with their own. But startups need VCs to become successful and when the time is up, the leeches come sucking.</p>
<p>It seems like YOU have things quite tangled up my good man.</p>
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It takes significantly less skill to run a business where you are constantly given advice and help rather than to run a country, or an army, or navy, etc.
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<p>I don't know about you, but Bush doesn't exactly look like the most efficient worker. But since when were we ever talking about the government? Regardless, public service is rarely more efficient than private enterprise, mainly because there's really little incentive to improve anything. On the contrary, if a firm like Microsoft refuses to step up, then too bad, so sad. Steve Ballmer said once basically that Microsoft's aim was to make money, not actually improve their GUI OS. I think you'd be hard pressed to dispute this monetary incentive.</p>
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Look at former Secretary of Defense, Speaker of the House, Senators, House of representatives, etc. All that PROVES that an ivy league education is just an education, nothing more nothing less.
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<p>And I'm asking YOU to look at the grossly disproportionate representation of Ivy League students at powerful banking and consulting firms. Mine and wutang's point has always been that the Ivy League graduates tend to go for the higher paying jobs such as banking and consulting - opportunities that are quite frankly, fairly scarce at the lower-tier schools. I have pointed out that a CEO position is often not usually the best option for a money aspiring Ivy grad, let alone a life in politics. Let's face it, politicians don't get paid as much of a base salary as successful bankers, so a lot of their money comes from political favors and tips. So I ask you again hyakku, who REALLY runs our country?</p>
<p>But more to the point, an Ivy League education results in amazing network opportunities and marketable prestige. THAT'S the power of an Ivy League education, and you'd be hard pressed to find a CCer that really believes that an Ivy education is "just an education". After all, why even apply to an Ivy in the first place, if there's really no special incentive that other schools cannot offer?</p>
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I don't give sugarcoated advice, I give real advice.
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<p>Hey man, I don't give sugarcoated advice either. I'm just dishing out the sad reality that exists and obviously, posters like you don't seem to enjoy that. It seems to me that you don't give real advice, but well-intentioned and often misleading, naive opinions.</p>
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I hope you dont think that because you go to Harvard, you will do great. I know a dope addict that was in Harvard, **** I knew of dope addicts (not pot, DOPE as in Diesel or Heroin for those who don't know) that are GOING to ivy league schools who are absolutely retarded and just happened to do well on the SATs and went to fairly easy schools.
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<p>Of course I don't! Remember that story a couple of weeks ago about the murderer who was a Yale alumni, lived with his parents, and was a drug addict? Success is hardly guaranteed, but that doesn't mean you should strive to improve your odds at success by going to a top school. As I have demonstrated, Ivy League graduates are disproportionately represented as CEOs, and I am fairly confident that they are well represented as political figures as well (despite many of them not relying on their grassroots which I must say, makes this overall feat much more impressive. After all, there are only Ivies in the Northeast). Just like people wear seat belts to increase their odds of surviving a crash, people apply to the Ivies to increase their odds of "doing great". Seat belts do not make you 100% safe, as you can still die in a car accident, but that's really not the focus here.</p>
<p>You know what hyakku, I'm beginning to sound like a broken record here because there are many people on CC who, like you, put up the same arguments over and over again. There's a famous poster, sakky, who basically says the same thing I'm saying over and over again in other threads (although he probably got tired of doing so) to people who quite simply, just don't get it. </p>
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I think however, that inadvertently you have strengthened my point Big Brother. If all the other people made it, sure the proportion who get the jobs compared to graduates of state schools may be higher (again there are other factors involved), but at the same time obviously their education doesn't differ much seeing as how the "normies" aren't losing their jobs left and right to ivy league grads
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<p>Uh, so what's your point? And how does that strengthen yours (what is your overall point anyways? First you were talking about CEOs and vague interpretations of 'success', and now you go on about the government and stuff)? My point was that Ivy graduates are still disproportionately represented as CEOs, which is a PLUS in favor of Ivy graduates. My MAIN focus was that Ivy graduates don't really go for these jobs anyways, opting instead for exclusive, lucrative careers in banking and consulting. DESPITE this, they still do well as CEOs and politicians, but your invocation of the CEO/doctors examples was a really bad one.</p>