I read an interesting but perhaps anecdotal column in the New York Times the other day — “The financial system nearly collapsed,” he said, “because smart guys had started working on Wall Street.”

So, it used to be that the people who graduated at the top of their class in Ivy League schools got respectable jobs — judges, college professors, etc. — while the ones at the bottom went to work for Wall Street. Then in the 80s the investment banks started paying tons of money and recruited those that graduated at the top of their class.

This meant suddenly all of the new guys were a lot smarter than their bosses. The bosses couldn’t understand all of the fancy financial stuff and thus we have the financial crises.

I don’t really believe this story.

However, I do believe the part about where people ended up working. My question is, if the brightest guys all work for Wall Street, does that mean dumb people are filling the slots everywhere else?

Secondly, is this actually a bad thing? (After all, if you did make it in to an Ivy League school you probably aren’t brain dead, and if you graduated at the bottom of your class you probably didn’t do much cheating.)