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Harvard is in the business of education, a private University. That's all. Now we all know Amway "contracted" Harvard. Perhaps someone at Amway knows someone at Bloomberg. Does it really matter? This is what passes as news, but I've seen worse.
This article is off-topic, and you flagged it as such. Once you say something is off-topic then what is point of article is a question that perhaps should not be asked
Now I have indeed asked same question before. More recently regarding an entry on the Ritholtz blog which is related to investing, and which is what we learn about here for a good part at MFO. Not sure if that was flagged off-topic. I don't want to discourage anyone from linking anything as long as it is OT. I do worry MFO becomes like CNN/CNBC where we link every nonsense article related to finance generating ad revenue for nincompoops.
Amway is a legalized Ponzi Scheme where in the person at the top does not take his money and run. He simply keeps finding an increasing number of idiots so he can take his money and keep it. The fact that Harvard is helping them do that in China is incidental. If it wasn't Harvard, it would be some other University.
1) China puts a huge premium on sending officials and their kids to Western universities. On top of the prestige of going to Harvard, Yale or Stanford, the best Chinese universities don't really compare very well, and they're trying to create a technocrat class with a better education. They put a lot of effort into this. The most complete world university ranking tables I know of come from China, or at least the ones most focused on what universities actually do, which is produce research.
2) World class universities do stuff like this all the time. They'll have month or week long seminars where you get the Oxford or Harvard imprimatur, without ever meeting an Oxford or Harvard student. It gets a little money into the school and increases their brand name wherever the students come from without actually diluting the actual education brand. It's study abroad lite. Win-win.
3) I suspect, though this is rank speculation, that since the article makes it seem like these are people like Provincial officials, that intelligence community money may be in play.
Amway is kind of incidental in that they're just writing Harvard the check.
Comments
This article is off-topic, and you flagged it as such. Once you say something is off-topic then what is point of article is a question that perhaps should not be asked
Now I have indeed asked same question before. More recently regarding an entry on the Ritholtz blog which is related to investing, and which is what we learn about here for a good part at MFO. Not sure if that was flagged off-topic. I don't want to discourage anyone from linking anything as long as it is OT. I do worry MFO becomes like CNN/CNBC where we link every nonsense article related to finance generating ad revenue for nincompoops.
Amway is a legalized Ponzi Scheme where in the person at the top does not take his money and run. He simply keeps finding an increasing number of idiots so he can take his money and keep it. The fact that Harvard is helping them do that in China is incidental. If it wasn't Harvard, it would be some other University.
1) China puts a huge premium on sending officials and their kids to Western universities. On top of the prestige of going to Harvard, Yale or Stanford, the best Chinese universities don't really compare very well, and they're trying to create a technocrat class with a better education. They put a lot of effort into this. The most complete world university ranking tables I know of come from China, or at least the ones most focused on what universities actually do, which is produce research.
2) World class universities do stuff like this all the time. They'll have month or week long seminars where you get the Oxford or Harvard imprimatur, without ever meeting an Oxford or Harvard student. It gets a little money into the school and increases their brand name wherever the students come from without actually diluting the actual education brand. It's study abroad lite. Win-win.
3) I suspect, though this is rank speculation, that since the article makes it seem like these are people like Provincial officials, that intelligence community money may be in play.
Amway is kind of incidental in that they're just writing Harvard the check.