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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (22573)	12/7/2004 5:24:40 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Respond to of 23153

Kodiak, first, re: Soros is X years old and has Y millions of dollars, therefore his time MUST be worth more than Joe Smith. This may actually be true. Joe Smith was a wasted first round draft pick for the Warriors. I've never seen Soros play but he might actually be better. I didn't realize you were such an astute basketball fan. Second, you pose the question: why in terms of conventional wealth ("net worth") someone like Gates, Buffett, Soros or even Tiger Woods is worth (in conventional, balance sheet terms) so much more than many other industrious, diligent souls? And you speculate that: the defining difference? [...] it's just my point of view, but it's how they gathered, managed and applied the information (a subset of which was and is technical applications, but that's far from "technology") that was available to all. To which I reply....WHAT??? There are a certain number of people who will achieve remarkable success and we'll then look at them and ask what makes them different? The truth is that in different circumstances and given some events that were entirely beyond their control, they'd be on the outside looking at a few other successes and trying to figure out what made those people special. But there ARE certain things that they will have in common with those who "could" have been in their places. What you call gathering, managing and applying information is what we used to call "good judgement." Good judgement is a function of talent and wisdom. In Tiger's case he had a whole lot of physical talent and the judgement to know how to apply it to striking a little ball. Gates had a lot of logical, scientific talent and the marketing, inventive and risk taking judgement to leverage it into a multi billion dollar business. Buffet and Soros had a simple understanding of economics that allowed them to make better decisions than others in niche areas of finance and they made a lot of bucks that way. Buffet's business model is still working, and it's no secret, but he does it better and he has the advantage of a big war chest. Never underestimate the advantage of having a lot of chips to put in the game. So if you're saying that the most successful among us necessarily have good judgement in the area of their successes, then that's a given. Many with similar good judgement will, however, not reach their level of success for reasons as varied as a lack of drive to a lack of luck. Only so many can climb to the top of the pyramid. Good judgement---can't win the top without it but may not reach the top with it either. I haven't spent much time thinking about it. In my view you get the dollars and spend them and then they come back again. You spend the years one time and they don't come back again. Ed