"Greedy" Perception of IBankers

During my senior year of high school, I remember telling my AP Bio teacher that I was interested in Ibanking or hedge fund management. And then she just gave me this look like, "you dirty greedy corporate whore. You're just going to be at that Devil Bank Goldman Sachs bank taking all my teachers union money that belongs to me."

Has something like this ever happened to you?

 

2 years later, as a sophomore in college now, I guess that kinda gave away that I was taking her class solely for the benefit of having another science AP on my transcript for college admissions. Thank God I got into UChicago. Her class was as boring as fuck.

 
cheese86:
LOLOLOL anyone in academia is just jealous that you will make more in your first year than most of them (almost all pre-university). Many of my Econ professors in college were former Wall St. (former by choice in some situations, not by choice in others).

highly doubt they are jealous but it is a very different set of goals and milestones that each career is on track for. Type A vs Type B people... some cross but not many

 
cheese86:
LOLOLOL anyone in academia is just jealous that you will make more in your first year than most of them (almost all pre-university). Many of my Econ professors in college were former Wall St. (former by choice in some situations, not by choice in others).

Yea most college professors have a lot of experience in there field. My econ teacher worked for the fed and on wall street. An entrepreneurial professor I talk to has a long track record in PE. Those who do, do. Those who cant, teach. College professors (in business at least) are the exception. It seems to me that college professors work in the field for a long while and then either want to teach or just want to take a steady job and chill.

 

i only have beef with the losers in academia, a lot of the guys in teaching/academia are just not impressive intellectually and communist.

the ones that are fucking smart at least can be commie all day long I dont mind.

also given how little moneys bankers make by industry standards calling them greedy is funny :D

 
leveredarb:
also given how little money bankers make by industry standards calling them greedy is funny :D

Dalio, is it you?

[quote]The HBS guys have MAD SWAGGER. They frequently wear their class jackets to boston bars, strutting and acting like they own the joint. They just ooze success, confidence, swagger, basically attributes of alpha males.[/quote]
 
jec:
The fact that you said that as a fucking high school senior proves she was right. This smug superiority complex is a big part of why people dislike bankers.
Haha people don't like bankers because they tend to be more successful than the average Joe and people tend to be envious of those that do better than them. As to having a smug superiority complex: You will find it in just about any group of people (especially with HS teachers for that matter)
 
saints2009:
During my senior year of high school, I remember telling my AP Bio teacher that I was interested in Ibanking or hedge fund management.
saints2009:
Has something like this ever happened to you?

Fuck no.

Yutown1990:
jec:
The fact that you said that as a fucking high school senior proves she was right. This smug superiority complex is a big part of why people dislike bankers.
Haha people don't like bankers because they tend to be more successful than the average Joe and people tend to be envious of those that do better than them.

Yeah sure thing. That's also why everyone dislikes doctors and engineers so much, right? right?? Give me a fucking break.

 
jec:
The fact that you said that as a fucking high school senior proves she was right. This smug superiority complex is a big part of why people dislike bankers.

This. I don't give two shits about you attending UChicago, you have no reason to be an internet ass clown when you have nothing to show for. Give me a call IF you get a FT offer, and IF you can stick it out your first year.

CNBC sucks "This financial crisis is worse than a divorce. I've lost all my money, but the wife is still here." - Client after getting blown up
 

I mean, this was kinda after I submitted my deposit for UChicago as a high school senior. Thank God the econ department here is more laissez-faire and not socialist. I don't think I could last another year surrounded by communist high school teachers.

 

One of my professors in college worked in fixed income research at Kidder Peabody and then PaineWebber after KP was acquired by them. Guy was smart as all hell and really wasn't very subtle about the money he made on the street. Didn't really get to know him very well, though, since he mostly taught graduate level courses. Wish I hit him up for some contacts before I graduated...

 

Yeah, and he was probably right. I mean, half the threads on this site are about "prestige," "exit opps," compensation, etc. Should tell you something. I'm not doing this job because I want to "create liquidity" or "help allocate capital." ou learn a shitload, but it's a brutal, soulcrushing business, and anyone who says it's a creative one is either VP-level+, or a liar. Sure it helps the economy, but no one BECOMES a banker to help people.

Let's get real: we're in it for the money, the prestige, the competition, or going to buy-side (which is also about money, prestige, and competition). No reason to bullshit about it. Or to brag.

 

The truth of the matter is that, more than any other job, high finance and IB tends to attract individuals who value making money more than the other traits of a job, such as interest, work/life balance, and the like. In that sense, bankers are more greedy, in that they value high monetary compensation above other factors, ceteris paribus.

I dont know about you guys, but I dont see too much "value add" (and I hate that term, it is like an Orwellian 1984 brainwash propaganda term that IBD use to justify their ethical existence) in finance and IBD. Sure, companies can be merged and financed etc, but this is not by any means more useful work than doctors, engineers, or most other professions that give to humanity. Most mergers have meager effects anyway, and are considered failures...and I will not even go into how unethical these banks are. They pay hundreds of millions every year for their transgressions.

So we really are not ethical beacons of any sort; and why do you guys think IB "deserves" so much money? Value add is minimal; it is just because of the long hours and competitiveness in entering.

I think we should just accept finance is a dirty job and live with it. Personally, I am sticking with IBD because of my dream to run my own fund, but not for compensation or anything like that, but for the intellectual challenge of figuring out the market and investing in my beliefs.

By the way, fully agree with poster above. Hit it right in the head. He forgot the bitches, though. We are also in it for the bitches.

To the starving man, beans are caviar
 

And I'm also sick and tired of the word "socialist" being bandied up and about. Learn what socialism is! Especially saints2009. Considering the NFL is socialist, very ironically.

I love some of the guys on the forum, big dick swinging pure capitalists, not realizing that this lack of regulation, lack of ethics, and lack of standards is what has us in the mess we are in today.

Addition: if bankers were not greedy, they really would not have created this crisis. So I think that solves the greediness issue.

To the starving man, beans are caviar
 

In 2001, the Bush administration began taking moves to bring Fannie under congressional scrutiny. Democrats like Barney Fag blocked it in committee and then we had the 9/11 attack which took Bush’s attention away from that matter.

In 2005 the same measure was brought up in the senate with McCain putting his name to the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005. S. 190. He stated: “I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.”….History proved McCain right.

The measure never made it out of committee. Chris Dodd, the then ranking member of the Banking Committee and later it’s chair, was in the middle of receiving preferential loan treatment from Countrywide, one of the companies gaming the system in the credit crisis. Barack Obama took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the lobbyists McCain mentions in the same speech which made him number 2 in getting money from these entities. Barney Frank as a committee member continued to deny any problems with Fannie and stonewalled any investigation into it. Frank is really one of the most disgusting individuals soiling congress today.

 

If you guys ever stop reading textbook theory and start reading economic history, you'll find every recession pre WW2 was caused by an out of control financial sector. After the war, there was this tiny period where recessions happened because of normal business cycle fluctuation when the government was careful of the financial sector. Now with glass steagall gone again, look back at the last 3 recessions: the savings & loans crises, the tech bubble, and the housing crises.

You still wanna tell me overpaid bankers add value? I mean, have you even thought about how a certain industry can CONSISTENTLY pay it's employees 30 - 40% more than it's peers?

The only value bankers create is for lawyers, accountants, consultants, and other bankers. Because if the banker never closes an M&A deal, these other corporate slobs don't have deal flow.

 
BlackHat:
pryan2016:
How often does shit like this happen to you?

As often as I talk to uneducated people.

haha case closed. SB'd

Remember, once you're inside you're on your own. Oh, you mean I can't count on you? No. Good!
 
BlackHat:
pryan2016:
How often does shit like this happen to you?

As often as I talk to uneducated people.

Or if I'm talking to Matt Taibi

Remember, once you're inside you're on your own. Oh, you mean I can't count on you? No. Good!
 

i saw a statistic that said something like 70% of political ads during the last US election had some sort of anti-Wall Street bias. it shouldn't come as a surprise that these ads work, and people think Wall Street is a bunch of crooks.

i wish it was different, but i don't really care too much what uneducated people think of my career.

 
Best Response

Wall Street is hardly filled with saints, but it's no worse than the rest of the business world, it's just that people on the Street are smarter, paid better and have more leverage at their disposal. Anyone who has looked at at a few hundred public companies and been around the block a couple of times as an analyst knows what I am talking about. Public companies are rife with Reg FD violations, bullshit statements out of management, self-enriching behavior, shareholder unfriendly activities, etc. I honestly could just write down some of the shit I've seen in narrative form, change the names of the people and companies involved, and publish it -- no doubt some of the stories would make best selling novels. There are literally unmitigated frauds in the market every year that would make better books / movies than anything that exists today.

 
Ravenous:
Wall Street is hardly filled with saints, but it's no worse than the rest of the business world, it's just that people on the Street are smarter, paid better and have more leverage at their disposal. Anyone who has looked at at a few hundred public companies and been around the block a couple of times as an analyst knows what I am talking about. Public companies are rife with Reg FD violations, bullshit statements out of management, self-enriching behavior, shareholder unfriendly activities, etc. I honestly could just write down some of the shit I've seen in narrative form, change the names of the people and companies involved, and publish it -- no doubt some of the stories would make best selling novels. There are literally unmitigated frauds in the market every year that would make better books / movies than anything that exists today.

You just pretty much defined my post-finance career.

I hate victims who respect their executioners
 

The people who think that Wall Street bankers are nothing but crooks are the same sort of people who think that the President is responsible for gas prices, think the government should be responsible for a person's inability or lack of drive to be successful with their life, etc...

It's easy for people to take that image of bankers because they are usually the more successful tier of people, so it's easy to blame them for takin all their moniez THAT RIGHTFULLY BELONG TO ME WTF OBAMA?!

But in all seriousness, it's stupid to care about what uneducated people think, especially when they base their opinions and "facts" off 99% Facebook groups and political ads.

Keep hustlin' cuz.

 
pryan2016:
I mean, she didn't actually say it explicitly, but I could tell that she thought something like that by her facial expression.

Ohhh ok.

Cool story bro.

"For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Bloody Mary full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now and at the hour of my death, which I hope is soon. Amen."
 

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