I've been reflecting on this kind of thing over the last few days. I've been wondering why some people are more driven/motivated/ambitious than others, and what mindset these people have that I don't (though I'm ambitious in my own way), and why some people can be entirely, 100% sure that they have a right to earn hundreds of thousands of pounds whereas others are content with a living wage and a decent life.

I'm ambitious in my own way - I run my own business (translation), which thrives entirely because I am very skilled at what I do, and I am committed to improvement and development of this business. I earn decent money (could earn more, given a few more years' experience) but I definitely fall into the 'content with living wage and decent life' camp above - no significant debt, but a fair-sized mortgage. I have some acquaintances who work for investment banks and large law firms, and their world is very different to mine, and I am trying to quantify that difference in order better to understand it.

I think this little article goes some way towards explaining the mindset - an investment banker is supposed to be absolutely certain that he/she deserves every penny of the bonus.

Sorry, this is a bit me-centred, but the article touched a nerve because of the lines along which I've been thinking lately, and I thought writing out these feelings would help me to understand.

Urgh, it's Sunday and I haven't had enough coffee. I see several large non-sequiturs in the above.

Yeah. Along these lines, and related to the Stewart-Cramer stuff, I wish there were more focus on Jon's "we capitalized your adventure with our hard-earned money [and homes to boot]". These people are like flim-flam men who have contempt for their marks. "If you were dumb enough to give us your money ..." is the preamble to Santelli's "losers" label.

There had been some discussion of this last year in the amount of the economy given over to "non-productive" uses of money, i.e. speculation and arbitrage. That's bad enough, but they created a climate where my mom's pension fund felt compelled to stick its money into this meat grinder lest they miss out on maximal returns.

It's not that far from a Ponzi scheme. Stewart said "You can draw a straight line from those shenanigans to the stuff that was being pulled at Bear and at AIG and all this derivative market stuff that is this weird Wall Street side bet," but you can also draw a straight line all the way to Madoff.

If you watch CNBC all day long, what's really stupid is how often you hear "XYZ Corp. has reached an agreement with MNO Bank to restructure its debt", and you can just smell the buzz as XYZ and MNO spike on the big board. Yet let one measly homeowner try to restructure her debt, and that threatens to bring down not just the entire financial system, not just capitalism as a model, but our entire way of life.

That's part of the flim-flam, I think--making the mark feel stupid or greedy or something, so they're not as willing to pursue recompense, or even tell other people what happened.

Q: "Why shouldn't investment bankers say thank you?"
A: "It's not personal, it's business."

Maybe this particular investment banker was an ill-mannered douchebag raised by wolves and pigs whose social circle was limited to people who depended on him financially.

Q: "Why shouldn't investment bankers say thank you?"
A: "It's not personal, it's business."
posted by Ardiril 15 March | 13:23

That's it. The answer to the question, and a key to the problem. Fuckers. There's a reason pure greed (with no other motivations) is an evil. And we're all living it now.

Well when I had the exact same job as the author of this article (except not with Bear, but a larger competitor), I said 'thank you' after my glowing review and top-tier bonus. They still loved me.

This article is BS.

I am very glad to hear that mullacc -- this shit has been freaking me out (and, apparently, making me swear)

mullacc, next you'll be telling us that you can get hired at an investment bank even if you sit at the side rather than the head of an empty conference table when they let you in before an interview. Don't be crushing our precious stereotypes!