Author Topic: Credentialism, Big Banks, and the Harvard-Goldman Filter  (Read 1611 times)

roo_ster

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Credentialism, Big Banks, and the Harvard-Goldman Filter
« on: December 20, 2009, 09:23:43 AM »
Interesting take on credentialism and how it effects our gov't.





http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/12/the_harvard-gol.html#more

The Harvard-Goldman Filter
Arnold Kling


My position on breaking up banks generates questions from two groups. Libertarians ask, how can I justify breaking up private sector institutions? Naive liberals ask, why is this policy not embraced by our political leaders?

My answer to both relates to what I call the Harvard-Goldman filter.

The Harvard-Goldman filter works like this.

1. To get into a position of power, you have to pass through a filter. The easiest way to show that you can pass through the filter is to go to Harvard and then work for Goldman.

2. If you do not go to Harvard and work for Goldman, then you have to show that you can get along with people who did.

3. The best way to show that you can get along with people who pass the Harvard-Goldman filter is to show that you believe in applying the Harvard-Goldman filter.

Why was Tim Geithner regarded as such an obvious, in fact necessary, choice to be Treasury Secretary? Because he satisfies the Harvard-Goldman filter, particularly point (3). He is not going to bring people from the wrong social caste into the policymaking arena.

So that answers the question from naive liberals.

As to libertarians, certainly in a world with no deposit insurance or government guarantees I could argue against government interference in the structure of private banks. But banks are not private in this country. They are quasi-public institutions (and if you read Niall Ferguson you might conclude that large banks have always been quasi-public institutions). There is a synergy between big banks and big government. Jefferson and Jackson were right. So breaking up big banks fits in with breaking up big government. Which is why we won't see the Progressive elite breaking up big banks.

The best book to read on the topic of the Harvard-Goldman filter is David Halberstam's Vietnam era opus, The Best and the Brightest. Goldman was not such a big deal then, but Harvard was, and so was Wall Street. What Halberstam shows is that investment bankers certified who was reliable or not--to serve in foreign policy positions.
Regards,

roo_ster

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
----G.K. Chesterton

Waitone

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Re: Credentialism, Big Banks, and the Harvard-Goldman Filter
« Reply #1 on: December 20, 2009, 11:14:36 AM »
The Harvard--Goldman Sachs Axis of Influence ain't the only one

     Andover Academy-->Yale University-->CIA

     George Washington University --> State Department

     Harvard University -->Goldman Sachs -->Treasury Department or FED

     Any top brand university -->Rhodes Scholarship -->elected political office

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds. It will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
- Charles Mackay, Scottish journalist, circa 1841

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Standing Wolf

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Re: Credentialism, Big Banks, and the Harvard-Goldman Filter
« Reply #2 on: December 20, 2009, 11:19:25 AM »
I'm so glad the aristocrats are sparing us all that unintelligible bother.
No tyrant should ever be allowed to die of natural causes.

MechAg94

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Re: Credentialism, Big Banks, and the Harvard-Goldman Filter
« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2009, 11:47:50 AM »
One guy I know suggested reinstating the rule against brokerage firms also operating banks. 
“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”  ― Calvin Coolidge

Waitone

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Re: Credentialism, Big Banks, and the Harvard-Goldman Filter
« Reply #4 on: December 20, 2009, 08:59:52 PM »
Paul Volcker is on record as favoring the the re institution of the Glass-Steagall Act.  Strangely enought Obama wants nothing of it.
http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/10/volckers_quest_to_reinstate_glass-steagall.php
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds. It will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
- Charles Mackay, Scottish journalist, circa 1841

"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it." - John Lennon

De Selby

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Re: Credentialism, Big Banks, and the Harvard-Goldman Filter
« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2009, 04:03:21 AM »
jfruser, if you haven't read The Ascent of Money yet, you should.  That's what this article is referring to when it drops Niall Ferguson's name.

"Human existence being an hallucination containing in itself the secondary hallucinations of day and night (the latter an insanitary condition of the atmosphere due to accretions of black air) it ill becomes any man of sense to be concerned at the illusory approach of the supreme hallucination known as death."

roo_ster

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Re: Credentialism, Big Banks, and the Harvard-Goldman Filter
« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2009, 10:58:30 AM »
jfruser, if you haven't read The Ascent of Money yet, you should.  That's what this article is referring to when it drops Niall Ferguson's name.

Thanks for the heads-up. 

I have read NF's columns/reportage, but never one of his books.
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roo_ster

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
----G.K. Chesterton

De Selby

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Re: Credentialism, Big Banks, and the Harvard-Goldman Filter
« Reply #7 on: December 21, 2009, 05:45:25 PM »
Thanks for the heads-up. 

I have read NF's columns/reportage, but never one of his books.

He's the most neo-con of the neo-cons.  His scholarship is second to none.

Waitone, it's not so strange that Obama wants none of reinstating the rules - so far he's proven amply willing to do Wall Street's bidding.
"Human existence being an hallucination containing in itself the secondary hallucinations of day and night (the latter an insanitary condition of the atmosphere due to accretions of black air) it ill becomes any man of sense to be concerned at the illusory approach of the supreme hallucination known as death."

roo_ster

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Re: Credentialism, Big Banks, and the Harvard-Goldman Filter
« Reply #8 on: December 21, 2009, 06:37:34 PM »
He's the most neo-con of the neo-cons.  His scholarship is second to none.

Waitone, it's not so strange that Obama wants none of reinstating the rules - so far he's proven amply willing to do Wall Street's bidding.

Corporatism.
Regards,

roo_ster

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
----G.K. Chesterton