It is the intellectual justification for why such a high premium is placed on degrees from first-tier business schools, and why the compensation packages for top executives have become so lavish.
Secondly, for users who do breach the company's terms of service, a new tier of sanction has been introduced.
Yet neither has formally declared a presidential bid, and neither has succeeded in pulling away from a second-tier bunch of candidates including senators Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.
In October 2013, the Economist suggested that, rather than third-tier cities such as Hull, Huddersfield and Wolverhampton continuing to be subsidised, they should be allowed to decline.
"If we do not give every young person the skills and knowledge they need we will lock in a two-tier economy".
Barely educated, though reputedly highly intelligent, Chapo rose to become a second-tier drug lord in the late 1980s, a time when Sinaloa-based Mexican traffickers were taking advantage of the new opportunities opened by the need of Colombian cartels to move their drugs through Mexico following US success at shutting down Caribbean routes.
However, despite becoming the first third tier team to reach such a stage in 13 years, they have someone within their camp able to pass on experience of such an occasion.
While all the talk this week has been of Bournemouth's rise to prominence from adversity, Rotherham have been on a similar journey, having also started the 2008-09 season in League Two with minus 17 points and under Steve Evans they have won back-to-back promotions and now secured their place in the second tier for another year.
Almost a decade later, it was Kilmarnock who toiled in a lower tier as Ayr enjoyed their most heady days in the top flight.
In the five seasons since Uefa rebranded its second-tier tournament, Italy have sent just two sides to the quarter-finals or beyond.
The smaller teams are convinced that Thursday's meeting, with its failure to address the problems afflicting the majority of the teams, paved the way for the introduction of "customer cars", with the bigger teams providing both engines and cars for other teams, creating a two-tier grid.
