Comments on: Parasitic debts

By: Anne Trubek

Anne Trubek — Fri, 07 May 2010 01:20:46 +0000

The criticism of both Crain and Klein is smart. But I gotta admit that in 1985 I wrote an essay on how “the critic is now more creative/better than the writer,” as an undergrad, and then went into a Phd program in English blah blah blah. Crain nailed me. Eerie.

By: Saheli

Saheli — Wed, 05 May 2010 23:59:10 +0000

This is what Marxists sound like when they discover inflation.

I don’t know why, maybe because I’m somewhat hysterically exhausted, but this line made me literally laugh out out loud for a good while.

By: PoN

PoN — Mon, 03 May 2010 22:56:50 +0000

Crain really sounds like a moron in this essay. I guess the fever is the noted excuse, but that’s pretty weak.

“My point is that all the rich man really has is a billion shells. Each shell represents a portion of a fresh fish, or rather, a portion of the labor power that goes into catching the fish, but the fish don’t exist yet, and it is far from clear that the rich man will be able to trade all his shells for what they represent. Because the rich man and his ancestors have been hoarding their wealth, a lot of fish that might have been caught over the years haven’t been; the opportunity to catch and eat them is gone forever.”

This is what Marxists sound like when they discover inflation.

By: PoN

PoN — Mon, 03 May 2010 22:25:20 +0000

As far as the congruences go, I think the old saw “correlation is not causation” is useful here.

As commented earlier, the market for English professors hasn’t been great for a while now. Also, a recession is by definition a widespread reduction in economic activity. We’d expect other fields to decline as the recession spread. A LOT of markets collapsed along with the investment banks, not just English professorships.

By: PoN

PoN — Mon, 03 May 2010 22:14:43 +0000

It is surprising how so many of these (HYP) kids get into i-banking or consulting just because their friends are doing it. It’s the peer-accepted way to enter the upper class. You know everyone will respect you, you’ll get a good check, and life is taken care of. And if you figure out a few years later that you really wanted to be a doctor, med school is still an option.

I remember a guy who went to an Ivy, smart guy. He went to NYC to do a biology graduate degree, didn’t like it. So he decided to get a job trading, because all his friends were doing it. Now I think he works as an adventure tour guide– he’s probably most happy doing that.

Well, given that the worm has turned, I guess we can look forward to a bubble that will culminate 20 years from now with 40% of harvard students becoming either lawyers or bureaucrats.

By: echan

echan — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:52:12 +0000

I heartily disagree; the market for English professors has been collapsing for over 10 years, well before the current convulsions in the financial market. When I majored in English in college, I came across stories all the time that talked about the dim prospects in the academic job market for English PhDs (the articles were all some variant of this screed. One of my classmates, who is finishing up his PhD in lit at Cal said that his acceptance letter to UCLA’s acceptance program told him that we was unlikely to get a job upon completing his program. What is he going to do with his degree in the fall? He’s enrolling in law school (which is the very plan I ended up taking after hearing way do many horror students from our grad student T.A.‘s).

Also, I think that Harvard undergrad is a huge anomaly — 40% of their kids go into banking or consulting. While I bet that Yale and Princeton (and the Wharton undergrad program) have similar numbers, I don’t think the same is true for other schools, even those in top tier. Goldman doesn’t care if the kid from HYP studied Russian literature; they’re paying for the Latin diploma.