Not-so-stuffy MBAs

Follies, a Columbia Business School (CBS) student organisation has produced two great videos: “Dean Dean Baby” and “Every Breath You Take.”

CBS Follies traces its origin back to 1773 when Alexander Hamilton staged the first show entitled "Tea Party for King George."

Dean Dean Baby stars CBS Dean Glen Hubbard dancing far better than is possible for most male economists. Memorable lines include: "HBS chumps, you're mistaken; I'm cooking B-Schools like a pound of bacon" and "If Excel was a drug, I'd sell it by the gram."

Every Breath You Take is an even funnier spoof by CBS students where the students skewer Hubbard’s disappointment at losing the Fed Chairmanship to Ben Bernanke. This is absolutely hilarious and is made even funnier with lines such as“When demand then dips, and the yield curve flips, I’ll be watching you,” “I feel so wronged and I long for Greenspan’s place,” and “ I keep crying Benny, Benny, Pleeease…,” and "Bet that beard's fake."

CBS was always among my top schools, but I’m now even more inclined to look at CBS favorably. MBA students have a reputation for being very arrogant, stuffy, and rude, but I’ve been very impressed in all my interactions with CBS students/alums, and the above videos seem to suggest that, perhaps, some MBA students even have a sense of humour.

Thanks to Marina for the link.

EDIT: CNBC interviews the students who made the videos.

Economist Speak -- Silly plus stupid = inefficient!

...it would be silly plus stupid (i.e., "inefficient" to an economist). But, who cares in an election year...

Will you give me another hug?

In the twilight zone between the time when I place my head on my pillow and the time when I finally reach gagaland a LOT of thoughts flow through my mind. These thoughts are random and take no particular order. For example, “n items can be arranged in n factorial ways,” or “2 is the only even prime number,” [thank you GMAT] or my thoughts on the current state of the world; or recollecting something particularly funny that I read or came across; or mentally practicing my taekwondo forms; and so-on-and-so-forth. Well, ever since my trip to St. Louis two weeks ago (more of that in a later post) NOT A DAY GOES BY when I haven’t thought of the woman whose dog died.

I was walking down Delmar Avenue in St Louis (which is close to the campus of Washington University and is filled with lots of interesting restaurants and non-chain shops) when I felt a hand on my arm. My gut reaction, which I’m very ashamed of in hindsight - - and blame on years of city-living -- was to step back, to take my hands out of my pocket, and to check that my wallet was still in my back pocket.

“Will you please listen to me?” asked a young woman - - who looked like she was in her late-twenties or early thirties, but which may not be the case since I’m really bad at estimating age -- as she grabbed my arm again .

“Sure” I said, still startled and slightly suspicious and wondering if she was trying to distract me while her partner was going to try to separate me from my meagre belongings.

She then held my arm for about 1 minute without saying a word and then said

“You’re NOT listening. LISTEN to me.”

“But you’re not saying anything!” I said, suddenly aware that there was alcohol on her breath.

“My dog died this morning” she said.

“My little dog died this morning, and I’ve been drinking ever since then. I just want to get drunk and forget about everything else.”

This brought back the pain that I felt, at 20, when my Cleo was run over by a truck. I was absolutely shattered and very upset.

I tried my best to console her and talked about how I felt when I heard about Cleo. It was only then that I realized how uncoordinated she was and that her speech was slurring. Suddenly she said “Will you give me another hug?”

I did and she then ran into a bus that had pulled-up along the pavement.

Her last words were “I’ve got to get home now” leaving me standing on the pavement trying to come to grips with what had just transpired.

Why does this conversation and series of events play through my mind every single night? Is it the sense that I couldn’t really console someone when she needed to be consoled? Is it the realization that - - despite the superficial congeniality - -it’s difficult to form deep connections in America (more on this topic later) and so a young woman has to drink to forget her problems and ask a stranger on the road for a hug? Or is it the sheer randomness of the event? Or is it embarrassment at the suspicion with which I initially greeted her? Or is it that I should have really tried much harder to make her feel better. Or is it the feeling that her pain and sorrow was palpably real and strong and that I was powerless to stop it?

I don’t know. But this incident plays through my head EVERY night.

Sloppy Auditing.

Just wow! How could an auditor be this sloppy? Do we still want to argue that the Sarbanes-Oxley act is overkill?

Thanks to the AAO for the pointer!

The formula for strong global growth appears to be (an) "undervalued Chinese RMB, high oil prices and a growing US current account deficit financed by the central banks of really poor countries and a few really rich oil sheiks. The formula is just so counter-intuitive that it took a long time to discover..."

So for how long will this last? Will there be a soft-landing or a hard-landing? This is important
(ed: Ain't you self-absorbed?!) because I'm contemplating MBA school --and the associated loans -- in 2007!

Thanks to Brad DeLong for the pointer!

Tyler has an interesting post on people's responses during speed-dating.

I quite like the "What's your favorite pizza topping" question, and I bemoan that it's not socially acceptable to make "small-talk" with politics, literature, current-affairs, and/or religion. The good news is that travel is considered an OK topic.

Tom Friedman meet Thomas Freetrademan.

What's my point? I don't actually have one--but opening my columns with strings of clichéd cultural juxtapositions really cuts down my workload. You see, since the Cold War ended, we've gone from superpowers to spreadsheets, Pershings to Pentiums, the Berlin Wall to suburban sprawl, olive trees to Lexuses. Are you ready? Because the whole world is changing. Unless you are one of the eight-tenths of humanity who at this moment are either hungry, illiterate, or field-stripping an AK-47, in which case I'll get back to you in some future column.

Not that I have anything against TF, but this is mighty funny.

Marginal Revolution has a good discussion on how to approach the geek male, along with an entreaty for suggestions to help end Megan's drought.