It is a firm belief of mine that most people I have worked within a blue collar environment do a good job, or at least a fair one for the income received. Likewise those at the lower end in the white-collar positions.
They also do a good job at being accurate in meeting the requirements of what they are doing, this being driven by the fact that the product or service is dependent for success upon this. There is generally little room for substandard performance.

At the corporate level things are different. It is not only possible, but probable that there are high levels of complete stupidity at the higher levels. This is because there is a capability for this to occur with little impact upon sales, as the product will still generally get made DESPITE the stupidity, so the only real impact is upon profits, and the culture is that it can seldom be those at the top who are responsible.

Take a decision-maker at a large bank, for instance. When they screw up, they do so by putting something in place that will work well in some if not most respects, but it will fail massively when certain market conditions occur. Hopefully for the individual, these conditions will, by sheer luck,  not occur while they hold their position. On a personal level they can afford to gamble, as the money is not theirs, the profits will increase in the short term when they implement their decision, and so they will gain kudos for it. And if the whole deck of cards comes tumbling down, they will be seen as a poor victim of the corporate crash.

The public is getting savvy these days to the fact that the so-called 'experts' are not experts at all, but quite often business -degree holding idiots. They are becoming aware that the impression of competence is driven by dress-code only rather than performance in conducting business using common-sense. Also that the use of insider vocabulary tends to give the impression of knowledge that might not be there, or at least might not have any relevant significance.

The only thing that has prevented previous major economic failures is the fact that there are such excessive profits within the system that they can be misused to cover up stupid errors. And there is no accountability to prevent that money being spent for that purpose. Unlike the lower level workers who make the value added situation for the company, those at the top have the power to cover up their own shortcomings until such time as the impacts of those shortcomings get outside the internal corporate structure. They control the money, and they can decide to use it in a cover-up of their collective or singular dumb-ass errors.

Conclusion - Many of the respected higher level corporate career people are actually introverted, visionless incompetents who are incapable of seeing the forest because of the trees getting in the way.

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