I find the sense of entitlement here astounding.
Labor unions and the politicians they control have artificially increased the cost of labor and driven tens of thousands of entry level jobs offshore. Government has put a choke hold on the last few vital industries in the country with new regulation, new taxes and bureaucratic interference. The threat of much higher energy prices being brought on by a shortsighted 'green energy' plan has kept those businesses operating at a profit from hiring even essential employees. Any business that succeeds is being dragged into congressional committee hearings to explain their transgressions.
And in an environment like that, these idiot kids think a new political 'movement' is the best way to get the very industries that they vilify to hire them. They support all the government run plans to smash the evil capitalists and put an end to their greed, and haven't figured out that those were the people who would otherwise be hiring them. Well as one of those evil fat cats who could potentially do some hiring in the next year let me respond this way..."Fat freakin chance."
About 4 years ago I interviewed a potential intern candidate who was a senior working on an economics degree at Cornell. He didn't know who Adam Smith was. It wasn't that he was nervous and couldn't remember. Even when I mentioned 'the Wealth of Nations" he didn't know what I was talking about. So if all you kids want to know why no one wants to hire you, don't go blaming the fat cats and getting all 'community organizer' on us. Blame the professors who taught you that failure should be rewarded and success punished. The last thing I need is an employee who believes nonsense like that.
No one gives a rat's patootie what you need. When it comes time for me to hire again, the first place I'm going to look is in Chinese and Indian Universities. They may speak English with an accent different than mine... but at least they aren't chock full of this massive sense of entitlement.
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6 comments:
How in God's name does an econ major not know who Adam Smith is? I knew that before I was 18, and I don't even like economics.
I went to look at the website, and for the life of me, I can't figure out what this movement is about. I could very easily interpret their "Common Sense Initiative" so that I agree with it ("Common sense would be to stop spending money you don't have.") Other parts of it could be easily interpreted to agree with a "progressive" agenda ("Common sense is the knack of seeing things for what they are and doing things as they ought to be done.") Still others have no meaning whatsoever ("Common sense says I'd rather be pissed off than pissed on.")
Common sense would seem to indicate that one should speak plainly about what one means.
About the intern, I was honestly astounded. This kid was paying major money for an Ivy League education, and all he was being taught was the moral superiority of Marxism, and how capitalism was a cruel system and it facilitated the exploitation of the poor.
Seriously... it was nuts. Needless to say he didn't get the job.
The kid I eventually hired ended up joining the Army, and is now an officer serving in Iraq.
It's odd he hadn't heard of Adam Smith. But are you sure it was because of leftist indoctrination rather than simple ignorance?
I know several people who couldn't name a single classical economist and don't know what "libertarian" means but who nonetheless espouse very libertarian, classically-liberal opinions on almost every political and economic topic. Perhaps economic and political knowledge is generally scarcer than one would expect it to be at ol' Cornell.
Had your interviewee exemplified such a person, you probably wouldn't have disparaged him, but--you know--just a thought.
I don't know ... call me crazy, but if your degree says "economics" anywhere on it, I think you should know who Adam Smith was.
He was an intern candidate at a hedge fund. It wasn't a question of what he believed, he was too young for me to take any of his opinions seriously anyway. It was a question of what he was taught... and the folks at Cornell apparently missed a few items that I considered essential.
yea, true. somehow I missed the part about his having an economics degree
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