Poor Sammyboi. 21 months. Same professors as in the regular MBA program. I think it was something like 25 weeks of 8 full day sessions, which is 200 full days. Most people still work full-time while doing that. Not everyone actually gets the degree. You should probably try to get something done for yourself, rather than desperately trying to diminish other people's achievements. I know that most people in my class had already done more than being a struggling lawyer minion in NYC before they embarked on the MBA, and they certainly have done even more afterwards. Plus, it was great fun and I got to know a lot of great people. The network still exists and helps today. Basically, all things you haven't experienced, which is why you are so desperately full of hate and envy.
Great article. Greece and the Flight From Reality A people who want wealth without work will have neither. On Sunday, Greece became only the second country in history—Argentina was the first—to make the transition from membership in the developed world to membership in the developing one. Now the question is: Who’s next? The question is worth asking since so many very serious people— Thomas Piketty, Paul Krugman, Jeffrey Sachs and Joseph Stiglitz among them—think Greeks did the right thing by voting down their creditors’ demands that they attempt to live within their means as a condition of further largess. Mr. Stiglitz, who doubles as a cheerleader for Argentina’s Kirchner government, says a “no” vote gives Greece the chance to “grasp its destiny in its own hands” even if it means a future “not as prosperous as the past.” Destiny can seem so romantic—particularly to intellectuals wealthy enough to disparage the value of other people’s economic aspirations. Destiny also has its uses for politically ambitious ideologues throughout Europe determined not to let the Greek crisis go to waste. France’s far-right National Front, Spain’s far-left Podemos Party, and Italy’s far-out Five-Star Movement all cheered Greece’s “no,” and they will emerge politically stronger should Athens now succeed in extorting better terms from its creditors. If nobody has the will to enforce the rules, nobody will have the desire to follow them. But maybe rules isn’t quite the right word. The larger issue is reality—and Greece’s flight from it. Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio is 177%, which sounds like an abstraction but means that this year Greece will produce barely half as much as it owes. This is what the Greek government and its fellow travelers call austerity. As of 2008, on the eve of the meltdown, Greece had no fewer than 133 public-pension funds, each administered by its own little bureaucracy. (Under pressure from creditors, the number was supposed to come down to 13.) Greeks retire earlier and live longer than most of their eurozone peers, which means they spend close to 18% of GDP on public pensions, compared with about 7% in Ireland and 5% in the U.S. Pension fraud is pervasive, but nobody can put an exact figure on it because record-keeping is notoriously, and probably deliberately, spotty. As it goes with pensions, so too with so much else. Creditors asked the Greeks to pare their military spending (currently among the highest in Europe as a percentage of GDP) by 10%, but the ruling Syriza party could only bring itself to make half the cuts. The Turks might invade any day. Privatization of state-owned companies was supposed to bring in €50 billion. Five years into the crisis, successive governments have only sold off €2.5 billion of assets. Greece has more lawyers per capita than the United States. As of 2010, Greek labor costs were 25% higher than in Germany. A liter of milk in Greece costs 30% more than elsewhere in Europe, thanks to regulations that allow it to remain on the shelf for no more than a week. Pharmaceuticals are also more expensive, thanks to the cartelization of the economy. These and other details give the lie to the claim that Athens’s woes are somehow the product of powerful and indifferent economic forces beyond its control: the value of the euro, or the machinations of high finance, or the mood swings of Angela Merkel. Greece wanted to be prosperous without being competitive. It wanted to run a five-star welfare state with a two-star economy. It wanted modernity without efficiency or transparency, and wealth without work. It wanted control over its own destiny—while someone else picked up the check. What’s more remarkable is how Greece’s flight from reality persists. Since Athens defaulted on its IMF loan last week, the Greeks have gotten a taste of what their future holds: shuttered banks, ATM withdrawal limits, pensioners lining up for their €134 weekly allowance. And yet they voted overwhelmingly for a government that is leading them, almost inevitably, to a swift exit from the euro and possibly the European Union, their only lifelines. Pride goeth before destruction, goes the proverb. So does stupidity. Perhaps in a few weeks, the Greeks may notice that their vote has put them at the mercy of Mrs. Merkel and other European overlords as never before. Or they might not. If the demagoguery of the Syriza government has worked, it’s because the Greeks were a people who wanted to be demagogued. The conceit of democracy is that people will eventually learn from their mistakes—even if they must first make those mistakes—and that experience is the ultimate teacher. But suppose it is not? Argentina shows that people can get it wrong generation after generation; that illusions of grandeur can sustain a politics of failure. Greece proves that Argentina isn’t alone. Spain and Italy could easily follow. And so could we. The lesson of Greece is that nobody is immune from making it their model. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB12591449784175704089704581092022620289218 P.S.: In case you haven't guessed it, the author, Bret Stephens, who is a Pulitzer prize winner, has an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago (and Master's degree from LSE).
He's bragging about an Executive MBA program???? Wow that's pathetic. Talk about going full douchebag.
You know...the type of MBA for accomplished executives. It's okay if that is a world that you are not familiar with. Not holding that against you.
Not really, he's being unnecessarily defensive about the *GLOBAL* Executive MBA summer program. Jackie - I don't believe the following was warranted. Nobody is trying to denigrate your accomplishment in the Global Executive MBA summer program. It's a laudable accomplishment, I'd be hard pressed to name a Global Executive MBA summer program anywhere that matches or is even on its level, (I'm sure Harvard/Wharton/Stern/Col/Stan probably have them, they're cash cows like most professional programs, but Chicago's is probably as good as any). And obviously you enjoyed it and are linked in with many valuable contacts now - you didn't need to tell us that, I assumed it was true. I owe you that much. Similarly, the UC Law LLM program, speaking from experience from the LLMs I know, is just as good as any LLM program (though you can't really complete most of it abroad, I guess that's the difference between the Global Executive MBA summer program and an LLM degree. ) Of course, none of the LLM's I knew would try to pass themselves off as J.D.'s, that's just not done, and frankly unneccessary. That's initially why I objected to your characterization. IYou have nothing at all to be ashamed of. That's why it's painful to see you slumming it with the Commodore and going all on Stupidonomics 101 - You're better than that,you owe it to the Maroon nation to show us what you can be.
People seem to overestimate the prestige of the regular MBA degree. The only real difference between an MBA and an executive program is that the daytimers do more academic clubs and more drinking. It is every bit as much a pay-your-fee-get-your-degree setup as an executive program.
I think EMBA programs have improved a lot in the last few years, but if you go back 10 years they were widely considered a joke. A way to buy "a prestigious MBA".
LL.M. is a degree you pursue after you do a J.D. (or the equivalent of a J.D. in another country). I don't see why anyone would want to pass off an LL.M. as a J.D. since J.D. is a graduate program and an LL.M. is more advanced than that, a postgraduate program. As a foreigner who already has a law degree from their own country, the way it works if you want to get a U.S. legal education on top of that from your own country, you usually do a one-year LL.M. program specifically tailored to foreign lawyers. However, after you have that, in most states, you cannot take the bar exam, as that requires a U.S. J.D.. The exceptions to that, as far as I know, are New York and California, where you can take the bar exam after just having been exposed to the U.S. legal system for a year, in an LL.M. program. I took and passed the NY bar exam in Albany, after (to be honest) not paying lots of attention in my U of H LL.M. program and a preparatory course on VHS tapes, the name of which I can't even remember (Kaplan?). Considering that about 30-50 % of U.S. qualified lawyers such as yourself with a J.D. degree fail the NY bar exam every time it is held, I am ok with the outcome of passing it after spending a fraction of the time concerning myself with the U.S. (and NY state) legal system compared to someone like you. I never actually practiced law in the state of New York, though. I could if I wanted to, but I chose to leave the legal career path and pursue more entrepreneurial things. If you are a foreigner with a law degree from your own country and you would want to take e.g. the Texas bar exam, you would have to do a full J.D. program (or something like an LL.M. and then work as an in-house lawyer (not admitted to the bar) in Texas for five years - not sure what the latest rules are).
ATW, you're welcome to use your supposedly superior knowledge to make a substantive rebuttal to the points made here. Or you can just yell "MBA nyah nyah!" and run away from the debate as you did earlier.
to bring this full circle.....is the executive MBA then the austerity version of a regular MBA? If so...I'm all for it.
So the IMF comes up with an absolutely absurd over-estimation of Greece's economic output after implementing austerity and then bases the interest rates and debt repayment plan on those crazy numbers, and now that we know they were totally wrong its still Greece's fault and they need to suffer because IMF economists live in some fantasy world where austerity of this scale doesn't do significant damage to a country. Frankly the IMF and EU economists deserve as much blame for this crisis as Greece does. Greece's unemployment and growth numbers are now WORSE than America's numbers during the great depression. They are literally living the great depression again in front of us and the EU and IMF's answer is to cut even more spending and raise taxes even higher. ATW you can't possibly be so delusional that you think this is a good idea. Oh and not to mention that Germany was the recipient of a massive round of debt forgiveness in the 50s that wiped out of all of the Pre WWII reparation debt. I suppose the US and Europe could have scolded Germany and forced them to stick to those promises but back then they were smart enough to realize that was an insane idea. What the EU is continuing to demand from Greece is equally absurd. The flaw isn't Greece anymore. Yes they screwed up badly but their ability to recover from such a screw up is impossible thanks to the structure of the Euro. The international financial system is designed in such a way that countries can impose measures to recover from a crisis like this. Some of that might involve some austerity but it also requires the ability to control one's currency in order to allow for a natural depreciation. The Euro doesn't allow for the latter and without that simply implementing a larger level of austerity doesn't fix anything.
Nolen, you are welcome to use your supposedly superior knowledge to make a substantive rebuttal to the points made in my post above. (That would, in fact, be your first post of any substance in this thread whatsoever. So far, you have only appeared as a claqueur for Sammyboi.) Or you can just yell "MBA nyah nyah!" and hide from the debate as you have done so far. P.S.: You are also welcome to address the points made in the Wall Street Journal article by Pulitzer prize winner Bret Stephens, which I posted above. Or you can just remain ignorant and silent.
From what I'm reading, the other Euro countries, including France and Italy, are not as sympathetic to Greece as the pundits, bloggers and keyboard economists. Not as hard line as the Germans, but still demanding Greece come up with reasonable proposals to meet its obligations.
Address the points made in the WSJ article I posted. The EU's position has always been that once Greece seriously addresses these points, they can get more billions of help, and more debt relief than they have already gotten. The problem is that Greece clearly decided that they are not willing to address their problems, but that they want to continue to get handouts regardless. The issue here is not that nobody is willing to extend their hand to Greece. That would include debt relief and many other measures to stimulate the economy. But at a minimum, that would require that Greece addresses some of the structural reforms mentioned in the WSJ article, even to show some goodwill. But they haven't, instead they have insulted those who have offered help as "terrorists, rapists, Nazis". It doesn't work that way. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P84tN0z4jqM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> This guy put it together very nicely. Nolen, Northside Storm, geeimsobored, Major, SamFisher: Please address his points.
Some of the other countries are more hard line than the Germans, actually - especially the countries that addressed some of their structural problems, made difficult decisions, but are now on the right track. These countries are ESPECIALLY pissed at the Greeks, who didn't do any of that, but still expect the rest of Europe to bend over backwards for them (while insulting the rest of Europe). Some of the leftist pundits are trying to make this a Greece vs. Germany thing. It isn't. It's Greece vs. the whole rest of Europe.
Your points above don't even get to the heart of the argument--as I explained several times. It's not as if the IMF, the current Syriza government with their time travel powers, and anybody else didn't clearly know the Greek situation in 2008. The debate in this thread is based on the response afterwards and how it was erronous. The thread title isn't "is Greece f**ked?" it's "Does austerity work?". You never responded to why you thought "austerity (as implemented) was the ONLY and natural way" to resolve the Greek situation: factually this is completely wrong (as early as 2010, IMF and several Euro officials were talking debt restructuring). You also never defended why you think Greece and Spain are "turning the corner" when Spain's debt/GDP tripled and Greece's long-term unemployed tripled as well.
