Does High Pay Equal Genius?
Good Morning, all of you bright inquiring minds out there; your King of Simple News is on the air.
What makes great men and women great? In this year of 2009, the answer to that question would most certainly be money and formal education that was derived from our most prestigious and most costly universities.
Why do large corporations pay their executives millions of dollars in bonuses alone? We’re told that this practice is necessary to retain such splendid talent. In order to get the best of the best, we must pay these titans of leadership immense sums of money in order to summon forth their genius.
Those who attend the highest cost universities, require the highest paid salaries and the loftiest positions in our society by virtue of their perceived intelligence. George Walker Bush and Barrack Hussein Obama both graduated from Harvard. William Jefferson Clinton graduated from Yale law school. Unbelievably, all three accept as true that exponential growth is possible in a finite world. This vivid example proves that Will Rogers knew of what he spoke when he said, “There is nothing as stupid as an educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in.”
But back to my subject of pay = genius. If we accept that theory then we could dismiss great deeds coming from relatively poor people who lacked an Ivy League education. Fortunately for those who benefit from the belief that pay = genius, Americans are poor math and history students.
It’s said that Thomas Alva Edison, one of the most prolific inventors of all time, was, “more responsible than anyone else for creating the modern world.” That Mr. Edison, “was the most influential figure of the millennium….”
Therefore, it would go to reason that Edison was a graduate of an esteemed university and was plied with hard cold cash to unleash his learned genius for corporate profits. Right? Not so much as you could tell it, Edison attended only three months of formal education (part of 1st grade) and struggled financially for many years.
In short, the most important man of the millennium invented because he could. He required money, not to live a grandiose lifestyle, but to support his desire to improve the standards by which we all live. He was home schooled and later determined that self study and self discovery were superior to canned university lectures.
Edison was probably just a freak of nature, so what about the nearly incomparable Nikola Tesla, the father of AC power, the induction electric motor, radio (bet you thought it was Marconi), and a combined list of other achievements that would fill volumes? He must have made the big bucks huh? Nope, he was also a college dropout and did his thing because he could. He passed away penniless.
Okay, a couple of freaks doesn’t set a trend, surely Dr. Jonas Sulk who developed the first effective polio vaccine did it for the corporate bucks? Well, not really. “When news of the vaccine’s success was made public on April 12, 1955, Salk was hailed as a “miracle worker,” and the day “almost became a national holiday.” His sole focus had been to develop a safe and effective vaccine as rapidly as possible, with no interest in personal profit. When he was asked in a televised interview who owned the patent to the vaccine, Salk replied: “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”
The idea that genius is commensurate with pay is utterly ridiculous. The belief that a graduate from a prestigious university is somehow better prepared than those who obtain their educations in less known and less costly schools, or from self study and life experience, is equally ludicrous. These beliefs are nothing more than a grand theft scheme perpetrated on an uneducated public.
Great people come in all sizes, shapes, and professions. They become great people because of their inner desire and natural ability. Crooks also come in all sizes, shapes and professions (Congress is a good example). They become great crooks because of their inner desire and natural ability.
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“These beliefs are nothing more than a grand theft scheme perpetrated on an uneducated public.”
Mike, your quote goes right to the heart of the matter. Most people in our society aren’t educated, they are mostly job trained and indoctrinated, but not educated. This is a good way to keep people in line and perpetuate a system that was designed to accumulate wealth at the top.
It has been said that he who controls the supply of money controls society. Democracy is irrelevant because the voters don’t control the supply of money. They are powerless.
Under these circumstances, those with high pay can claim genius and get away with it. They control the money, the media and subsequently what gets taught in the schools, including the colleges. The game is fixed.
It has nothing to do with intelligence.
The persons who graduate from these schools prosper due to the connections they make while at the school.
The Ivy League is the playground of the children of our new hereditary nobility.
It is all about connections.
Were you Skull and Bones? You are in…
Mike,
I think a more accurate comparison may be cunning=high pay. A slight bit different than intelligence. Artful, deceptive, shrewd, wily, sly, guileful. Predatory nature.
The current crop of miscreants we are supposed to bow down to are corporate predators and nothing more. Unfortunately, much of society believes that certain people are worth outrageous sums of money and it is not limited to the banksters and other corporate criminals. Are people who chase balls worth millions compared to police and fire fighters who risk their lives daily? What about lumberjacks who could be killed instantly at just about any second they are in the woods?
Our society, for some reason, worships the accumulation of wealth and power and detests people who use their hands to make a living. That will not change until something dramatic happens.
Greg, said, “It has been said that he who controls the supply of money controls society.
The Federal Reserve (neither), predominately communist members, has controlled our money supply since 1913.
Any questions? - bb
The Fed has definitely controlled our monetary policy since 1913. However, I don’t think we will find any Communists there.
I think Hotrod’s description fits better….”artful, deceptive, shrewd, wily, sly, guileful… (having a) Predatory nature.” “Bankster” sums it up even better. That’s a good one!
In a short time when the dollar is worth next to nothing will it really matter if you have one hundred or one billion? At that point those that chose the route of self study and self discovery will once again prove to be superior to those with an Ivy League Education. How long do you think a Wall Street Bankster will last if he was out on his own to fend for himself?
Cliques , groups, insiders,outsiders, us, them: it’s what humans do .
“Over a drink, or a cup of coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naïf or a prig—the hint will come. It will be the hint of something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand: something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about: but something, says your new friend, which “we”—and at the word “we” you try not to blush for mere pleasure—something “we always do.”
http://www.lewissociety.org/innerring.php
Good Morning,
In my last line of the article, I said, “They become great crooks because of their inner desire and natural ability.” Hotrod summed those qualities up nicely, ”artful, deceptive, shrewd, wily, sly, guileful… (having a) Predatory nature.”
I have made the remark that a person receiving $100 Million per year could be replaced by 100 people making $1 Million each per year. Would then the best 100 people in America who would accept a $1,000,000 salary, collectively do a better job? What about a 1000 people making a $100,000 per year? Or even 2,000 people making $50,000 per year?
But then, perhaps my question above is not the subject at all. Perhaps the real question should be; can a society long exist that measures EVERYTHING in dollars? It certainly doesn’t appear that way from my house.
The measuring device “money” can be and in many subgroups has been replaced by other standards. Basic needs however never change; including the need to belong to a group or to be noticed. For some ‘noticed’ is the Greatest need of all.
Hutch,
The C.S. Lewis link that you attached is a subtle reminder of just how important the ingrained traits of humans really are.
Herd animals we are, but the herd is further divided into sub-herds. As Hotrod suggested, the rich and powerful have a low opinion of those who work with their hands and have no interest in being friends with the latter mentioned unless they smell profit.
The old saw about the poor boy wanting to marry the rich man’s daughter and meeting wholesale rejection is clear evidence of exclusion by design. We have enormous prejudice that exists between inner and outer circles and rich and poor. That’s just the way are.
Churches, schools, work places, organized sports, corporations, government, boards of directors,…all have inner circles that make the important decisions and the rules for the outer circles to follow. Rather than rebel, the outer circles (who clearly have superior numbers) try desperately to enter the inner circle and be noticed so that they can then screw over their previous outer circle friends.