Feudalism in America?
It's a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master's carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know you're a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, you're on board. When you get frisky, he sticks a big cross in the middle of your village, and you spend the rest of your life praying to it with big googly eyes. Or he puts out newspapers full of innuendo about this or that faraway group and you immediately salute and rush off to join the hate squad. A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger.
- Matthew Taibbi
I can still clearly remember back to my earlier analyst years, as much as I often do my best to forget about two of the most abusive, underappreciated, tiresome years that I had to endure immediately after my college years, years in retrospect I had wished I had spent less time worrying about .1 differences in GPA, the amount of technical knowledge I had for interviews, and spent more time on things that are clearly luxuries today: a large number of young, fun-loving, beautiful girls in one place; irresponsible, memorable nights with friends, and copious amount of time to recover and sleep.
Throughout my time, I continued to ask myself day in and day out why I was where I was. Why put in over eighty hour weeks, hours that often could easily be condensed but managed to be unevenly spread between idly sitting and working so frantically that bathroom breaks were a luxury. Why sacrifice my social life during my early 20s in a city known for its vibrant culture and nightlife. And why behind our bosses' backs we would mock, deride, and criticize their very existence only to instantly bend over subserviently the moment they were in front of us with a request. We were in the freest nation in the world and yet we continued to live like peasants in a medieval world.
My cubicle mate and I often challenged each other a continuous basis on these very questions during our analyst stint. He was an Ivy League educated political science major who prided himself very much on being an academic at heart and clearly had larger ambitions than staring at an Excel spreadsheet all day and fixing the formatting on Powerpoint slides.
Over the duration of what felt like a very long two year period, we gradually began to realize that all of us were there because we idolized those above us. We longed for the opportunity to one day become Managing Directors and Partners having our weekend summer houses on the shore, our SL 65 AMGs/ Audi R8/ Porsche GT Carreras, but most importantly sit on top of the corporate hierarchy where for once we would finally have a sense of autonomy over our lives.
Sitting at my desk at 1:00am on a Friday night, after furtively browsing the internet for a majority of the day, I hopelessly bury my head into my hands as I sit here making last minute changes to a presentation that was dropped on my desk late in the afternoon. My mind begins to wander off and I randomly end up back in college sitting inside my Medieval History class. Looking back, the one thing I will always be thankful for is that I received a well rounded liberal arts education. While my parents often pushed me towards a pre-professional degree like the pre-law, pre-med, and business administration majors that many of my friends would ultimately go for, I valued the importance of receiving an education that would allow me to think creatively and outside of the box rather than have me memorize formulas and learn case studies whose conclusions were actually quite dubious when faced with the test of the time.
No study of Medieval European History would've been complete without addressing the concept of feudalism.
Feudalism. The term immediately elicits images of kings in their vast, fortified castles, knights in their armor defending the land, and poor peasants working their land from dawn to dusk. Feudalism was a strict social hierarchy in Medieval Europe and was certainly an oppressive political and economic system from the tenth century that disappeared after the fifteen century.
Except that it hasn't.......
Feudalism's success wasn't due purely to the strict separation between the different classes, but rather the fact that the population ACCEPTED their standing in society. The American Dream's selling point is that hard work over a long period of time allows Americans to support their family and allow them the benefits of home ownership.
Except serfdom was often defined as serfs who were bound to the land which they worked to pay taxes to their lords.
In the past the idea that working hard and gaining admission to a four year college or university was the golden ticket to an upper middle class lifestyle.
Columnist Larry Beinhart described his college experiences in the 1960s where the cost of a college education was $400 a semester with several Regents scholarships providing covering the entire cost of the tuition. For the few that still didn't manage to land a scholarship, a summer job was often enough to cover the costs of tuition.
Fast forward to the 21st century and the cost of college education is significantly different. The average cost of public state universities is now about $7605. However readers of this site are well aware that state colleges fall under a pejorative label in recruiting circles at several of the largest Wall Street banks, law firms, and consulting firms as "non targets". While attending such schools certainly doesn't preclude students from attaining jobs at such firms, students will often face an uphill battle against students from "target" schools, schools with established on-campus recruitment programs, significantly stronger alumni networks, greater associated prestige of their degrees and perceived higher intelligence.
Lower and middle class students aspiring for successfully lucrative careers will often times take on student loans in order to attend such universities. The student immediately becomes indebted to the banks. With the tuition of top universities now averaging $50,000 a year easily, many students are finding themselves in close to $200,000 of debt for a bachelor's degree. Upon graduation, a heavily indebted student suddenly doesn't have the luxury of career paths after graduation. So while peers not heavily indebted have the luxury of options of more "fulfilling" careers via the Peace Corps, NGOs, and a creative career as a journalist or artist, most students find themselves already bound by their own set of golden handcuffs. That is being forced to take a lucrative job or be stuck with deteriorating credit ratings while more important life decisions eventually come to fruition.
And since the bachelor's degree has been the de facto minimum required by most employers in the 21st century, many students in a number of areas find that they now need to pursue graduate degrees which cost up to an additional $150,0o0 to further advance their careers.
David Segal of the New York Times however refutes such a popular notion that graduate degrees guarantee employment or even higher pay from candidates with bachelors degrees.
****
Done with my edits, I head down the elevator to a line of black Lincoln Towncars waiting for exhausted, relieved employees such as myself just looking to get some shut eye. Today I stare outside of the car's window looking out at the different bars and restaurants we pass on the way to my apartment. A part of me thinks to myself, how ridiculous is it that in order to live comfortably I am spending 34% of my income on my house, with the rest is nearly taken out in taxes, leaving the remainder to a number of opportunists looking to cash in on the Wall Street culture of ostentatious spending habits on designer clothing and access to VIP bottle service at the city's top clubs.
"Why keep doing this?", I keep asking myself. A part of me knows that one of the only reasons I'm still working here is because of the large bonus everyone in the industry looks forward to at the end of the year. The bonus that one day will allow me to release myself from the tyranny of corporate slavery and allow me to do something more enjoyable like running my own business or investing in other people's businesses. Basically, grant me the freedom to one day be able to live my life on my own terms, not have to be stuck in the office late into the early morning on my weekends and be subject to menial tasks that I was capable of accomplishing in high school.
Looking back I see that this was a bonus that came at the expense of the taxpayers and those on Main Street. My shrewd MDs at the top of the firm developed complicated derivatives that they sold to a number of different state and municipal treasuries. Derivatives that probably were misrepresented as risk-reducing and too complicated for local treasuries to fully understand. As a result when municipalities ran into financial troubles and were downgraded (scenarios my MDs were certainly well aware of), they often were forced to pay hefty differences or termination fees to the banks. All of this coming from the expense of the taxpayers.
Yet that isn't the only place where I see the lords of our society stealing from the serfs. I think about Quantitative Easing. Sure the Dow is trading above 12,000. But all of that is thanks to almost a trillion dollars in taxpayer money being used in purchasing treasury bonds and encouraging the purchase of other risk assets. As a result, commodities are trading close at their upper historical ranges. Crude Oil is trading above $98/barrel, Gold is at $1490/oz, and Silver is trading close to $34/oz. This is a policy that only serves to benefit those who hold a majority of their wealth in risk assets (aka the upper classes) while making basic essentials such as gas, food, and most consumer products become more expensive for those in the lower to middle classes, many of whom do not have any substantial exposure to such investments.
I think back to my college years again. Attending the investment banking information sessions on campus. The entire room was filled with the who's who of successful seniors, the ones at the top of the class, the ones that were able to land prestigious junior year internships, the ones who talked to all the right people in all the right places. We all knew there was no way everyone in the room would make it to the supposed holy grail that was investment banking, and that those who were fortunate to join the group of people giving the presentation would instantly be amongst the elites in society. Little did we know we were actually signing our lives away to serfdom. But if anything, this was the job that gave me the best chance to one day free myself from modern day serfdom.
A prominent politician once said "Today the large organization is lord and master, and most of its employees have been desensitized much as were the medieval peasants who never knew they were serfs."
A very interesting post to
A very interesting post to think about, thank you. I currently am a college freshman to be, and quite honestly, after reading many of these posts on this forum, I don't know if IB is the place I want to be.
I think society gets a glorified sense of what jobs these (you) people have. Even the worlds elite have to deal with the crap day in and day out. For me, I think the ability to grow, develop, and enjoy life is far more important than any amount of money made. Money matters, sure, but at what cost? We seem to hate our jobs, hate the elite, but accept it in a hopes that one day we can be them, looking down from our golden towers.
So, thanks for a new perspective and a kick in the pants.
Bravo.
Bravo.
S&T for the win. When you eat
S&T for the win. When you eat what you kill, you don't feel like a serf any more. Your wins are (mostly) yours. Your losses are also yours. When you have this freedom, you feel fucking good.
"The code of competence is the only system of morality that's on a gold standard." - Francisco d'Anconia
Nice post, I genuinely
Nice post, I genuinely enjoyed reading it. While this subject has been beaten to a pulp, it is still worth mentioning. Banking is a grind and it's not for everyone. The day to day work is rarely exhilarating - especially at the entry level (quite common at any mid/large firm in any industry). You will need to pay your dues and make sacrifices. Life won't be easy and you will not find yourself swimming in dollar bills right out of college. Knowing this in advance you would only have yourself to blame if you are currently suffering.
Good luck monkeys.
Great read. Feel like this
Great read. Feel like this could be a guest post in the NYT.
People tend to think life is a race with other people. They don't realize that every moment they spend sprinting towards the finish line is a moment they lose permanently, and a moment closer to their death.
What a whiner! A post that
What a whiner!
A post that starts with a Matt Taibbi citation never augurs well.
If you weren't in banking, you couldn't even afford to spend your "early 20s in a city known for its vibrant culture and nightlife", so livin' it up in NYC is not part of the opportunity set. Again, stop whining.
I believe that your misdirected anger (!) at costly education*, bailouts et al. is not a rebuttal of "the system", but rather a statement on your own, if I may say, misery.
* Studies still show the ROI of higher education is huge.
tobywashere wrote: S&T for
S&T for the win. When you eat what you kill, you don't feel like a serf any more. Your wins are (mostly) yours. Your losses are also yours. When you have this freedom, you feel fucking good.
Your losses in S&T are hardly yours, you do not have any of your personal money on the line and don't actually take any personal risk(other than potential job loss). Your wins are mainly from screwing clients over. Repeatedly.
If you run your own hedge fund, and only have personal money in it, then your wins are yours and your losses are yours, not in some S&T role lol, stop deluding yourself.
Still would like to point out that the vibrant nightlife in NYC would not be part of your life if you worked some 9-5 job in NYC cause u wudnt have any monies.
I enjoyed reading your post
I enjoyed reading your post but there is an old saying "you have to pay your dues". That is what the investment banking analyst stint is - "paying your dues". The MDs before us did the same thing and one day when we are MDs we will also have analysts that do our every bidding. This is just a rite of passage.
What other job pays a 22 y/o $150k a year? What other job allows you to retire significantly earlier than most other jobs? What other job has the manner of prestige, glamour and social elitism associated with it? IMO, very small amount and a few years of hard work for a lifetime of rewards is worth it.
equity_player It's funny
equity_player
It's funny talking about how these jobs will open all sorts of new doors.
I agree that while they open doors at the same time I think that several doors close as well.
When you're making close to $150,000/year, the question is could you suddenly accept a "normal 70k" a year job afterwards if the need arose?
2008 was a giant wake up call for several people in the industry. Young college graduates saw themselves making incomes close to $150k, which as you said is almost unheard of for anyone that age. But with that high salary is it possible that you incidentally enslave yourself to the lifestyle?
As Eddie once wrote about several months ago in his piece on "Sell Your Options Dearly: Debt"
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/sell-your-opti...
If with the 150k a year you start living a 150k lifestyle, could you actually be able to get away from that if the need arose?
I say this, because during my time, I had a friend working in the industry who did extremely well for himself. Top of his class, very sharp individual, and loved to enjoy the money he was making every chance he could. Then two things happened. The crisis of 2008 which jeopardized his company, and a family living hundreds of miles away from where he was working became terminally ill.
He clearly knew that spending time with his family was more important, but with no banking jobs close to where his family lives, he struggled mightily to force himself to take the 50% paycut. (and lest we forget that 70k is still in the 90th percentile of salaries in this country despite what living in NYC leads us to believe)
So yes finance opens doors to PE, HFs, AMs, and F500 companies but I wonder if for people it causes people to overlook several jobs that are good for lifestyle/personal/family reasons as well simply because their pay doesn't match the levels they are used to.
They who are of the opinion that Money will do everything, may very well be suspected to do everything for Money. ~George Savile
equity_player wrote: I
I enjoyed reading your post but there is an old saying "you have to pay your dues". That is what the investment banking analyst stint is - "paying your dues". The MDs before us did the same thing and one day when we are MDs we will also have analysts that do our every bidding. This is just a rite of passage.
What other job pays a 22 y/o $150k a year? What other job allows you to retire significantly earlier than most other jobs? What other job has the manner of prestige, glamour and social elitism associated with it? IMO, very small amount and a few years of hard work for a lifetime of rewards is worth it.
This. All high-paying jobs require serious due-paying early in life. I've got friends in med and law school, and all of them are putting in long hours (it gets worse for them when they leave school, too). Start-up founders work 100 hour weeks. I know high-powered nonprofit people that put in long weeks. Either embrace mediocrity or suck it up.
Also, serfs of previous eras would've murdered their whole families to be in your position.
I agree that what we have now
I agree that what we have now is modern day serfdom. Another way of looking at it is a form of indentured servitude. You cannot get anywhere without a college degree these days and they are definitely not free, nor are they really that affordable. Sure, going into Finance makes it easier to finally "buy your freedom" or "escape the taxed land of the lord", but nonetheless, it's still incredibly costly.
What about the guy that went to H/Y/P in order to get a great education, but that wasn't at all interested in Finance? He wanted to help the poor by doing (insert social program here). The guy will be a slave for life. We are fortunate that we may be able to escape this earlier with the fat paychecks, but then you become a serf/indentured servant of another order, where your new master is now your lifestyle. How many people can actually get out of banking after 5-10 years to pursue something that is not Finance related? Very, very few. The reason is you can't afford to do anything else, and you also do not have any skills that are transferable. It's just a product of the times and our culture.
To those of you talking about paying dues, I ask that you re-read what absurdistan Dan wrote as you are completely missing the point.. He was not bitching about the hours or the mundane nature of the job itself, he was trying to use it as an illustration to his point that we are basically serfs and that Feudalsim is alive and well today, albeit in another form.
"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed."
Theodore Roosevelt
Something Creative wrote: I
I agree that what we have now is modern day serfdom. Another way of looking at it is a form of indentured servitude. You cannot get anywhere without a college degree these days and they are definitely not free, nor are they really that affordable. Sure, going into Finance makes it easier to finally "buy your freedom" or "escape the taxed land of the lord", but nonetheless, it's still incredibly costly.
What about the guy that went to H/Y/P in order to get a great education, but that wasn't at all interested in Finance? He wanted to help the poor by doing (insert social program here). The guy will be a slave for life. We are fortunate that we may be able to escape this earlier with the fat paychecks, but then you become a serf/indentured servant of another order, where your new master is now your lifestyle. How many people can actually get out of banking after 5-10 years to pursue something that is not Finance related? Very, very few. The reason is you can't afford to do anything else, and you also do not have any skills that are transferable. It's just a product of the times and our culture.
To those of you talking about paying dues, I ask that you re-read what absurdistan Dan wrote as you are completely missing the point.. He was not bitching about the hours or the mundane nature of the job itself, he was trying to use it as an illustration to his point that we are basically serfs and that Feudalsim is alive and well today, albeit in another form.
When you have to work hard and do the right things to get to the top of the pyramid- that's not feudalism. It's also not feudalism when you have all the freedom in the world to opt out of the rat race- go to a nice cheap state school, get a decent job. Nobody's making you go to H/Y/P, incur debt, and work in law/IB/consulting/med. That's for people who freely decide that's what they want to do. Feudalism would be if you had no choice, and if you had no chance of rising.
Gimme a fkin break about the
Gimme a fkin break about the poor poor people that wanna go into NGO, went to HYP and now have alot of debt.
If you plan on going into NGO work ad help save the poor, thats great.
Do you need to go to HYP?
No.
Are you a fucking retard for amassing debt that you know you won't be able to pay off?
Yes.
I've seen a bunch of posts
I've seen a bunch of posts like these before but this is the first one that's made me say "Wow!" This was very well written especially for a wso post. Kudos
leveredarb wrote: Gimme a
Gimme a fkin break about the poor poor people that wanna go into NGO, went to HYP and now have alot of debt.
If you plan on going into NGO work ad help save the poor, thats great.
Do you need to go to HYP?
No.
Are you a fucking retard for amassing debt that you know you won't be able to pay off?
Yes.
Why should you not be able to go to H/Y/P if you want the better education? Why is it that you either have to be rich or come out working in Finance, Law, etc or drown in a ton of debt?
"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed."
Theodore Roosevelt
+1 Everything up until the
expenseaccounts
"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed."
Theodore Roosevelt
Something Creative
Suit Up wrote: Capitalism
They who are of the opinion that Money will do everything, may very well be suspected to do everything for Money. ~George Savile
Well we can thank the
www.jetcigs.com - Use coupon code WSO30 for 30% off
absurdistan dan wrote: Suit
Something Creative