I've been bombarded lately by people asking me if I feel fulfilled with my job in finance, or how it helps the general public... trying to compare what I "give back" to what a doctor provides to society. When my answer is "well, nothing really," they want to ask how I can live with myself. Personally I couldn't give less of a fuck, I'm just doing something I like and getting paid money (which I also like) to do it. Who cares about anything else?
Thoughts from the general monkey population? Anyone find a need to justify their career's "value add" to society?
With my job, no. With my life, yes
The only people I know who brag about "adding value" are full of shit. Most people are just as insignificant as you are; at least you're able to pay the rent easily.
EDIT: You've got plenty of time before you should start really losing sleep over adding value to society. You'll figure it out eventually, but at least for now you'll make some pretty good money.
I don't think many people choose their field based solely on their "value adding" qualities. Teachers are teachers (other job) because it's what they are good at or want to do, not because of some lifetime community service project that they want to fulfill in society. Also, IP makes a valid point.
The best quote ever: "What Other People Think of Me is None of My Business" http://www.mindrecipes.com/2011/what-other-people-think-of-me-is-none-o…
No matter what you do in life, there will always been people complaining that you are not doing enough. The more you try to please other, the more you will need to do justify yourself. It is an endless vicious cycle. At the end of the day, you are only accountable to yourself. You are the only one who really know what make you happy.
The only people I know who keep talking about adding value are self-righteous pricks who don't add any value to themselves as well as to others. Here is something that you can send to your self-righteous friends:
"Don't try and make yourself useful in the world. Look at the natural order of things. What is the use of a tree? It has many uses, but it isn't TRYING to be useful. It's just doing what it wants and in the process of doing that it does its job in the natural order of things. The only way you are ever going to do an ounce of good in the world is to do what you want.
Look around you at the people who try hard to be useful. Are they really doing good things for people? Or, do they make everyone around them miserable with their self-righteousness and incessant busy-bodying? Everyone hates them for being insincere and treating others with inferiority.
The people who really do others some good are those who do what they like and don't care if they are being useful. These people are usually interesting and fun to be around. They inspire other people to figure out what it is that they want to do by example, thus causing more people to be interested in life and interesting to be around. These people have the most profoundly positive impact on us and thus make our lives richer in the most meaningful way."
-based on an article from http://users.aristotle.net/~diogenes
Human, I love your post. And Illini, totally in agreement.
My friends piling on the debt in medical school right now love to ask me how I can live with myself knowing my job doesn't help people. Instead of arguing that it does I've just resorted to saying I don't give a shit, because that's the truth anyway. As a person though, I like to think I do plenty to make the people around me lead better and happier lives.
I truly am of the mind that society is best served when the base level of accountability is the individual. The corollary to such accountability implies that each person must make a life pursuing his own goals, with his own ability, to his own happiness (and the happiness of those whose happiness makes him happy (#Inception)).
I don't indiscriminately care about the "greater good" because doing so would be to spit in the face of the few I truly care about; to love everyone is to devalue your ability to love those who deserve it. I'm going to pursue what I'm passionate about to the best of my ability - if it happens to contribute to society, I'm happy to do it, but it's only a coincidence. I'm trying to make a life for me and my inner circle, everyone else can fuck off.
tl;dr: I don't care about contributing to society because it places society above those I truly care about (myself + few people I love).
+1 SB good sir.
"Companies make money, banks make money, investors.... well, two out of three ain't bad", or what was it?
But in all seriousness, people I know/encounter either have business degrees themselves or I can go with one of two possibilities: Either tell them something about market efficiency, capital allocation and how that benefits the economy, or I just tell them I don't care, but I like what I'm doing and generate a lot of tax revenues.
Haha, that's the best excuse. I help create liquidity!
Junior analysts may not add too much value to society, but like others said, who gives a shit? But you do learn a lot, position yourself for better opportunities, and give yourself flexibility – which is more than 99% of other undergraduate and MBA students can say. Now, senior investment bankers and portfolio managers are a different story.
No.
hit the road, pennybags
Damn, WSO is waxing philosophic today. Me likey.
No. Even if I was a genius, I would not feel obligated to pursue medicine. I would pursue the most lucrative career possible.
Every person has his/her own career which is part of the whole society. Doctors can't do research with fund and where does the fund come from? Just a function of life and do what you love in my opinion.
Our society has this thing called "money" that we use to quickly and accurately measure how much of a contribution an individual is making to society. More money earned means they contributed more. Unfortunately, it's easy for the simple-minded to think that since a doctor's work has a much more direct and tangible benefit than someone who helps bring efficiency to the capital markets, the doctor's work is a greater contribution. It's not - if Doctor A didn't exist to do my surgery, all I'd have to do is go to Doctor B. That's why doctor's aren't paid millions.
From a more macro-societal viewpoint, finance is a much more important profession than medicine. If tomorrow the whole world forgot that there ever was a medical profession, we as a society would be fine. Yes, life would be more uncomfortable, and people would die sooner, but after all, society got along fine for thousands of years without even knowing the benefits of modern medicine - it wasn't until a few hundred years ago that doctors started doing more good than harm anyway. The point is, society would go on.
Now try to remove finance from the societal equation. Extreme inefficiency in the capital markets would result, which means that capital would no longer have a way to flow from one person to the next. A lucky few would have all that remained of the hugely diminished capital pool, and the remaining 7 billion of us would quickly start starving, which would immediately lead to rampant crime, poverty, disease, and war. Think about the poorest, war-torn sub-Saharan countries. Famine (affecting 67% of the population in the Congo), leading to rampant crime, poverty, disease, and war, just like I said. Why? Inefficiency in the countries capital market. Period. Adding a million doctors to the mix would do nothing. Adding an efficient capital market is the difference between the Congo and the U.S. After efficient markets follows the rule of law and a stable government, and the rest of society - the less essential parts like medicine - will fall into place.
There's a reason we get paid the most: we add the most value.
With all due respect, this is an absurd statement. If I had put my money where my mouth is, and shorted FB I would have made around $10k in less than 10 hours. Now compare that to the 2+ months of work I would have had to have done back in high school to have made that same $10k. Clearly my 1000 hours of a tangible service was an equal contribution to society as my 5 seconds of pushing a button..... wait wat?
Also, clearly the hedge fund manager who made a billion dollars contributed 20,000x more to society than everyone who made $50k. Look, I'm not hating on capitalism at all, I do believe it is the best economic system. All I'm saying is that to try and find ANY correlation between "money earned" and "contribution to society" is absurd. You could EASILY make the argument that society would be better off right now if finance didnt have the strangle hold on the "brain trust" that the money has allowed it to have in the past. Im actually quite interested to see where we go now that its losing that hold.... I'd bet a lot of money the answer is in a better direction
^^^^^^ True that.
You can actually get paid for destroying value. You can get paid to activate a bomb to blow up a building full of doctors/useful goods. You can get paid for making a political decision that closes down a useful industry. You can get paid for selling junk bonds to grandmas. You can get paid for drowning puppies.
In essence, you are paid for helping your employer reach their goal, which can be anything, including value destruction. I'm even pretty sure that some people on this board get paid for being good at destroying value.
Gotta say that was a nice high school job $10K in +2 months, not bad for a highschooler.
Try:
"I reduce the bid-ask spread by 0.000000000000000000000000000001%
Suck my dick."
In a long term i'd like to be doing meaningful work...whether it being research related, market moving whatever...I'd hate to think that i will always do all i can to please some exec in a company noone has heard off to make some fees. Yea, i can be doing what enjoy and get money for it, but if you think a little deeper it'd be much more rewarding to add to that list something that's meaningful...
Jealousy is a bitch. It just sounds like they're all apart of that "99 percent." Ignorant assholes. Doctors save lives, but where does everyone think liquidity comes from to build the fucking hospitals and fill it full of equipment? Id love to see them save lives in their fucking basement! Doctors are important, but shut the fuck up about it. Do professional athletes add value to society? Does any one ever get after them? If finance makes you happy and you enjoy your job, FUCK EM.
dude...
people pay you, right, for your job? let me tell you a little secret: it's not because they like you. it's because you're doing something of for them that they value.. this is the "value add" that all these morons throw around but can't seem to understand.
how do i know i'm "adding value" to society? because SOMEBODY'S WILLING TO PAY ME TO DO IT. end of story.
Eventually, you can donate more money than a social worker? That's my motivation to get outta 50 hrs/week volunteering and pursue my interest in Finance, correct me if I'm terribly wrong
Exactly. Look at Bill Gates. A serious cut throat business man, but has now committed to philanthropy and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Not to be a douche and quote Wall Street, but Bud nails it with, "But you gotta make it to the big time first, then you can be a pillar and do good things."
Agreed. Chuck Feeney is another great example. He must have been one of the wealthiest men in America and kept his net worth private until it was made public when he donated most of it away. To him making money was just a byproduct of hard work and passion. Shit, I need to work harder thinking about people like this.
A) only jobs that 'help' people are important B) Doctors 'help' people C) other jobs mostly don't help people D) What is the point of helping people who don't help others? However: E) could the Doctor do his job without a farmer to provide him food? F) Could the farmer run a farm without the banker?
Helping is great, but where do you distinguish help from just trying ti make money? Seems like a difference without distinction to me.
I really don't care about "adding value" beyond what it means for my job security...I care much more about measurement.
I think this is why I have come to prefer the markets: I know whether I am right or wrong. IB is just necessary as any function in finance, but I'll be damned if I know why we got one deal and not the other, or what impact I actually had.
yeah, my "value add" and most people that work in finance are the shear amount of money we spend that keeps a lot more other people down the line employed.
Never, not in the slightest.
I as a student add more value than a priest, a modern artist, a hipster, a hipster unsuccessful writer, and all the other hipster "professions" (priest is not hipster).
Before complaining about financiers, people should take a look at the spoiled art students becoming wash out designers or artists.
Granted, I have a bias here, but fuck I hate that shit on a canvas is called art. Pretentious jealous and ignorant douchebags bashing finance when they themselves are able to survive thanks to finance.
Fuck modern art.
"When my answer is "well, nothing really," they want to ask how I can live with myself."
^I thought you work at an Equity HF, if that isn't adding value I don't know what is. You support companies that are not recognized for their true value, and force companies that are over-recognized into either improving what they do or shutting down. (obviously very, very simplified, but in the end that's what you do). The knock on effect of that is ultimately that everyone gets a better standard of living.
@808. Hopefully my message didnt come off as "anti-finance" or "anti-capitalism" because that is not AT ALL what I'm about. I'm merely saying that there is pretty much no correlation between "value-added" and "money earned". Just a couple examples off the top of my head. The Nobel Prize award is ~$1.5 million. That bum A-Rod signed a contract that pays him $27.5 million a year for 10 years. Another example, George Soros pocketed over a billion dollars betting against the British pound on Black Wednesday. If you found a cure for cancer you'd make a couple million dollars. To say that money earned equals your contribution to society would be to say that blowing up a nation's currency is 500x as productive as curing cancer.
At the end of the day, this is a completely subjective discussion with no right or wrong answer. All I'm saying is money earned DOESN'T represent your contribution to society... it represents what someone paid you. Nothing more, nothing less.
No, I don't think you came across as anti-capitalist. You just don't think that the money you get represents the value you add in a perfectly proportionate way, and you're saying that there are many instances where the relationship is in fact hugely disproportionate, or even negatively correlated. I say it's always perfectly proportionate, but it's sometimes hard to see that because of the nuances of the modern economy. You say A-Rod's $27.5M is disproportionate to his value added; I say it's perfectly proportionate because modern technology enables him to provide entertainment value for millions, allows other companies to create brand value through advertising, gives MLB and the team millions in licensing revenue, etc. We can go back and forth forever with you comparing huge compensation for some seemingly low-value contribution to comparatively small compensation for some seemingly high-value contribution, and me arguing how the former is really high-value, and the latter comparatively low-value.
Good discussion - agree to disagree.
As I said in my first post, this is a difficult concept for people to grasp (and maybe I'm not even right) which is why the second argument I gave in my first post is easier and more compelling.
@808 I get your argument and it is a good one. As you said though, it is impossible to prove / disprove.
Another thought: how you define "adding value to society" is critical to the discussion. Is it the absolute value you add, or the amount of people you add it for? In other words, if you make one person extraordinarily better off at the slight expense of countless others, can that be considered "adding value?" No opinion here (b/c the answer wont affect my actions) but food for thought.
The relative wealth argument concerning destroying value is interesting as well. ie, getting paid to trick other parties into holding the bag
Classic utilitarianism - Jeremy Bentham would be proud. The "what is value" discussion isn't really one I'm interested in. To me, something has value because someone values it - I don't care why they do. That's true from a micro (individual) or macro (society) viewpoint. If an individual values something, the individual is a part of society, so society values it in some small way. Take the net of all the individual's values, and you get society's values.
I put the relative wealth discussion in the realm of creating efficient markets. Yes, it's complex, but the end result is a net benefit to society.
Sure, but market values do not always reflect society's net values.
Another example if you like:
Joe and Jane are married. Joe is a surgeon who saves thousands of lives, Jane is a stay at home wife. Jane gets bored of Joe, so she hires a killer to kill Joe. Jane will surely pay lots of money to the killer, and create a loss to the society. Both, Jane and the killer know they are creating a loss to the society.
Jimmy is volunteering (is paid zero) to help children from the poor neighborhood with their homework/to treat people in Africa from malaria/to clean the neighborhood from trash. He adds a lot of value to the society, but gets no money for it.
The reason of doing good to society argument (i.e. surgeon better than banker) can come into a slippery slop is very simple. Who the heck are you in the world to tell others what is valuable or not? What is right or wrong? Are you the creator, the all mighty-knowing god? No. That's why stop bringing up silly arguments like this.
Every thing in life have a price and everyone should decide individually on how much they are willing to pay for it, in term of money, time and energy devoted on what they want for themselves. Since time and energy are variable harder to quantify, you can only use money to represent what something mean to you.
When you start going all mighty with moral value indoctrinated by the institutions such as religion, government, society, or any authoritative figure, this is where the shit show starts. When you start preaching everyone should do good for the society, without understanding that the only good thing can happen when a society where individually, people decide what they want for themselves, and collectively, it creates a society with diversity in term of needs, wants, and values.
Jimmy may only be able to do this because he gets donations from people (who are working), or lives on some sort of social security, which come from taxes, which are (hopefully) paid by wealthy people. He may not be not self sufficient and may rely on charity to feed and shelter himself, unless he has prior savings and investments.
Does he add more to society than a guy working in finance who donates a sum to a NFP doing the same thing as Jimmy, in order to get a tax deduction?
The donation allows the NFP to utilise more resources and connections to achieve their objectives, utilise synergy to achieve more than Jimmy could alone, hire people like Jimmy on a minimum wage who get paid to do this (meaning Jimmy is not relying on the social security system, which is over half of the tax money is spent, at least in Australia), utilise more efficient systems and processes, and help more people than just Jimmy can alone.
Don't like losing in the discussion, don't you?
@ etherlord - Like I said, we can go back and forth all day with scenarios like this - one of them might even stump me if I'm not familiar with the complexities of the transaction. We can debate forever about what is right or wrong, and what really added net value and what didn't. Crime and volunteer work are interesting variables, but they don't change my argument in any way. Volunteer work, for example, has $0 net value. It could have been very valuable for the people receiving the services, but apparently the volunteer felt that the good feelings about himself/his "contribution", his need to fulfill a higher moral obligation, the benefits from other people's admiration, or whatever he feels he received was equivalent in value to the time he spent volunteering. If he didn't feel that way, he wouldn't have volunteered. It was an equal exchange of value in the volunteer's eyes, hence, no monetary exchange.
By the way, killing someone is cheap. Find a way to get them to South America, and it's about $20 a pop. That's my value add for the day.
Well, then you disagree with your previous notion that money is the only measure of value added, and that money is proportional to value added. According to your last post, you can get monetary and nonmonetary compensation for the value you add.
If your nonmonetary compensation is negative (bankers are an excellent example), then you might get paid more than someone who added equal value, but got positive nonmonetary compensation (doctor).
Nonmonetary compensation = value. Money = carrier of excess value. If an exchange has no excess value either way, no money need be exchanged.
Some one once asked me if I add value to society, I said "I add more value in a day then you will add in a lifetime.". Now I don't give a fuck if this is true or not but it's the best way to get these assholes to shut the fuck up.
BURN! ! ! Haha. Throw in a biotch and I think we got it.
This is funny because my Social Studies teacher always says "Why did I do something noble with my life by becoming a teacher, I could have worked on wall street and be part of the 1% right now." He's joking around but it's true. I don't really give a shit what I'm doing as long as I'm paid well and any way finance is a very important thing in the world.
I personally do care, because it makes me feel good. That being, said, I don't have much of a problem with the people who don't care, as long as they're not doing any harm. Do I wish everyone would care? Yes. Is being self-righteous about my own choices going to help others care more--probably not.
Fuck society. You gotta keep your head on a swivel and always look out for numero uno.
As someone beautifully pointed out in one of those other, "Woe is me; why am I not doing anything useful?" threads, the translation for those comments is: "WHY AM I NOT GETTING MORE ATTENTION?!?!"
I don't care what people say when it comes down to "helping the world". People can do whatever they like, and some want to help others. I might later on, but I'm not interested in that at the moment.
I feel that my job adds value to society (in a very strict sense, I feel like it's generating wealth). I'm sure environmentalists think I could be generating negative value but I don't agree with them.
It's one of the reasons I like coming to work, but not a major reason. I'm not in finance.
I like watching the world burn, is that ok? Should I not do that?
nvmd
I dont care about my value add to society. That's total bullshit. I just care about my value add to myself. I dont even care about making others believe I contribute to society. I dont care about telling other what they expect me to say. I just tell them how it is: I add value to myself, fuck the world, fuck society. Society doesnt care about any of us either, sad truth but the truth.
More of a Value Add by being wealthy rather than working in finance perspective, but some of Walter Hoving's Tiffany and Co ads address the value add to society by being wealthy.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Are_the_rich_menace.jpg "By [investing your $1Mill], you [furbish] the capital required to put about 30 people to work.... On your million dollar investment, you receive an income...[which]. you spend for food, clothing, shelter, taxes, education and entertainment....[by spending] you support firemen, policemen, store clerks, factory workers, doctors, teachers and others. Even Congressmen."
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Profit.jpg Is profit a dirty word? "Out of profits too come all taxes from corporations or individuals, which pay the entire expense of federal, state and local government including Social Security, welfare, public schools and national defence. And every dollar you earn or receive comes out of profits-directly or indirectly- and pays for your food, clothing, shelter, education and all your living expenses....Only by defending profit can we achieve more equitable wages, generate the capital needed to employ more people, create jobs for future generations and gain greater prosperity of all."
Also of interest is Adam Smith's theories on social justice, conspicuous consumption, and on the rich man's responsibility to distribute capital and position as the best person to do so. If you have some time, go read them.
If they have a religious bend, you can always quote Bible verses that you use to justify that God wants people to be rich, gives you the ability to be rich, and has promised the wealth of nations (Genesis 26:12-14, Deuteronomy 8:17-18 Isaiah 60:5, Isaiah 61:6, and Isaiah 66:11-13). But at that stage you'd probably be trolling.
Unfortunately these ideas only work if you work on cultivating your persona so you are perceived more Warren Buffet or Bill Gates (ie Responsible Wealth Philanthropist) than Alan Bond. And of course, don't let it get public if you have a tax strategy like Kerry Packer.
Well, take it in the context that the piece ran in 1977, so the capital required to support 30 people at NPV will differ.
Anyone who is asking about secondary market securities has a finance background. Any one with a finance background isn't going to try and worry about you needing to justify your "value add" to society because they themselves valued wealth generation over humanitarian aid work a long time ago.
Regardless, in my limited understanding of secondary market securities, they have have their purpose in fulfilling the investors desire for liquidity and reducing risk held by the issuer. If the secondary market didn't exist, investors may be less inclined to invest if the investment didn't provide the returns within the time frame they desired, and if the issuer couldn't offload the risk via a SPV and capitalise returns instantly, they might not have the money free to invest in more projects. Less investment funds means less capital to support infrastructure and labour. Someone who purchases securities is typically a savvy investor, and assuming we don't have the same issue with valuations we had in 2007 which contributed to the subprime mortgage crisis, then as far as I'm concerned, they decided they were willing to take such a risk associated with the security in order to potentially gain a higher return on investment. Meanwhile, there is how many people employed to facilitate the process?
Mind you, I'm only new to these topics, so I could be misunderstand the topic. If I've misunderstood it, I'm happy to learn, but I think that's how you spin it. It's harder in the wake of the GFC, but not impossible.
I simply doubt that there is much connection between large investments in secondary markets and employment effects.
I don't think this thread is about what value finance adds to society rather than about do you care if your job adds to society. In finance, you can be doing different jobs and some add more to society than others. The question is do you want to do something that also contributes to society. I don't necessarily mean charity. For example, would you like to work in S&T where you get all the benefits and although your job is important (as any other job is) you can't see the value add specifically. On the other hand, if you are a venture capitalist and you invest your money in biotech firm that starts making treatment for cancer...your money has directly added value and it's easy to see. The question is what job would you prefer and do you care if in your job the value add is apparent.
Exactly. What I was getting at is whether or not one of the criteria in choosing your career path is how much you get to see it help others, or more plainly put, how "warm and fuzzy" you feel on the inside for having done your job right. My medical school and doctor friends say it's the entire reason why they do what they do and sacrifice so much time in order to do it, but for me it feels weird because I never even considered that in making my career decision. I just wanted to do something that I enjoyed doing and that would help me support myself and my future family. If somehow it made someone else's life miserable because they lost money on the other end of a trade I made, I never really saw that as something to care too much about. I just love the game.
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