I just find it funny how outside of the tri-state area, no one really knows what Wall Street does. Considering that Wall Street has such a hold on people's every day life, I find it quite absurd that people are so oblivious to the fact that Wall Street controls their life from the shadows. The reason that you are able to drive your car is indirectly because of Wall Street. An investment bank was responsible for taking that car company public and raising capital in order for it to expand. The restaurants that you eat at. They are financed by investment banks or owned by Private Equity funds. The reason you are able to get a mortgage for your home---- a bank. I come from the south and I attend an Ivy target so I didn't know what Wall Street actually did until I got to college. The thing that i could associate Wall Street with was "stocks." When I go home and have conversations with my dad, I am appalled at how little he knows about money and how it works, despite him making 800k+ a year. If every day people simply taught themselves the basics of investing such as ETFs, stocks, bonds, Treasury rates, etc, they would literally never go broke. If they knew that they could hedge against a recession by investing in gold and other commodities as opposed to investing in a fucking restaurant like my parents did when I was 8 in which they lost over 20% of their initial investment. I see why Wall Street executives are so arrogant and think they are God. They literally know how the system works and make money off the ignorance of every day people who do not have a clue in regards to how money actually works.
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cool story bro
Glad you thought so bro!
I feel like in some ways this could be extended to any profession. Like for instance consider marketing using cookies, behavioral targeting, etc. Common people have no clue about how marketers use this info to get them to purchase. And in a sense the common person would not know what an SWE does at Google. We all can say he/she "codes" but have little clue what actually goes on in that profession Only professions that interact with common people on a normal basis (med, lawyers, etc) are actually well known. And in many ways, that's a good thing. People who want to choose a career path that the commoner knows can do that, or if they want a more reserved, not as well known career they can pursue that as well.
I understand but the every day person understands marketing and has heard of marketing jobs whereas the every day person literally has no clue what investment banking is or private equity or hedge funds. It is literally a mysterious world to majority of people that is reserved solely for the elite(clients' kids, target kids, wealthy kids, and high-achieving non-targets)
The internet is a magical thing.
"Wall Street loves to use confusing terms to make you think only they can do what they do. Or even better, for you to leave them the fuck alone."
– Ryan Gosling (as Jared Vennett)
Extremely true. I was genuinely overwhelmed by the amount of acronyms and intricate vocabulary in high finance when I started learning about it. CMBS, MBS, call option, put option, LIBOR, basis points, CDO, CDS, etc.
This.
Also Wall Street Execs make nowhere near the money they used to and certainly ate humble pie as they begged Washington to bail them out (and not let Lehman go) in 08. Long gone are the days of flashing the cash. Most people on this board will be too young to know about life pre-crisis but man was it different...
Why don't we extend the thought further. How much do people here or the average person know about water. Like where their water comes from, how its treated, where it goes, how it gets to your pipe etc etc. Water is literally essential for all life. One could look it up, but what about the specifics. How about where one's food comes from. How it gets from seed to farm to your grocery store? We all need to eat to live.
TLDR: there are too many things to know and learn and only 24 hours in a day to do one's job, try to live a personal life, take care of basic needs and sleep. In short, we all know nothing.
+SB, poignant and relatable.
The other day I was talking to a guy who part-owned the grocery store I get my juul pods from. Guy had saved up a decent chunk of change and was looking to buy a gas station. He asked me what I did for a living and I said "finance". He asked me more specifically and I said "my firm buys things such as real estate and ownership in other companies, then sells it a couple years later."
He literally had no idea what I was talking about and the only way I could get across to him was to say that I basically work in a bank (to which he obviously thought I was working sales/bank teller).
It's ridiculous how many/most people don't understand how the financial system works. You would think that everyone should at least know what banks do aside from storing your money for you lol. But to be fair, I get it. Most people don't/will never work in finance and don't feel the need to care about anything other than the digits in their checking account.
You would think that since they care so much about the digits in their checking account, they would take the necessary time to understand what the fuck money actually is and how it works.
We live in a society
MS for advising people to invest in fucking gold to hedge for recessions and comparing it to buying a restaurant LOL.
I think it can be said for any job. People think accountants sit around all day doing taxes. They have no idea about the other areas such as audit, advisory, corporate, etc.
When I did corporate accounting, I could not explain to people what I did, because just about everything I did was strictly accounting (journal entries, fixed assets, etc.). At least now I actually do taxes so I can talk to people about taxes.
We're doing God's work breh, that's why
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