This quote comes from the NYTimes Magazine, and its profile on Edward Conard, the Bain Capitalist publishing a book on why vulture capitalists make the world better by making crap cheaper:
“A central problem with the U.S. economy, he told me, is finding a way to get more people to look for solutions despite these terrible odds of success. Conard’s solution is simple. Society benefits if the successful risk takers get a lot of money. For proof, he looks to the market. At a nearby table we saw three young people with plaid shirts and floppy hair. For all we know, they may have been plotting the next generation’s Twitter, but Conard felt sure they were merely lounging on the sidelines. “What are they doing, sitting here, having a coffee at 2:30?” he asked. “I’m sure those guys are college-educated.” Conard, who occasionally flashed a mean streak during our talks, started calling the group “art-history majors,” his derisive term for pretty much anyone who was lucky enough to be born with the talent and opportunity to join the risk-taking, innovation-hunting mechanism but who chose instead a less competitive life. In Conard’s mind, this includes, surprisingly, people like lawyers, who opt for stable professions that don’t maximize their wealth-creating potential. He said the only way to persuade these “art-history majors” to join the fiercely competitive economic mechanism is to tempt them with extraordinary payoffs.”
Yes, the reason I’m dragging down our economy is because the multi-million dollar salaries of investment bankers weren’t high enough to tempt me into the ring. I’ve done plenty of mid-afternoon lounging, or what I call intellectual labor, at cafes in my time and I’m always glad to have the company. The article doesn’t say whether Conard has any children, but if he did, I’m sure they do plenty of lounging at bars and cafes. And there we all sit with our lattes, impoverished grad students, trustifarians, and dissolute idlers.
