If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?

We think intelligent people are kings in modern America. Even nerds in high school don't have it quite as bad as they used to, because everyone recognizes that nerds can grow up to become filthy rich. In America, even the classic "jocks" understand the brute strength available to the rich.

Interesting thing about making money though -- you don't need to be smart. Smart might even be a hindrance. A business canniness exists independent of intelligence, the kind that makes used car sellers wealthy and college professors lower-middle class.

(Business canny is related to, but separate from business savvy. Savvy is a practical understanding of business. Canny is a knack for working the angles. Both are different from being "smart.")

Here's a New York Times editorial from Calvin Trillin on the topic, entitled Wall Street Smarts.

“The financial system nearly collapsed,” he said, “because smart guys had started working on Wall Street.” ...

I reflected on my own college class, of roughly the same era. The top student had been appointed a federal appeals court judge — earning, by Wall Street standards, tip money. A lot of the people with similarly impressive academic records became professors. I could picture the future titans of Wall Street dozing in the back rows of some gut course like Geology 101, popularly known as Rocks for Jocks.

I've spent a lifetime being smart, and that's only gotten me partway to where I want to be. I'm going to talk about this some more tomorrow.