I am a Banker, more accurately I'm an Economist/Investment Analyst, my company makes it's money by 'investing' in the stock market. As amazing as that sounds, neither my colleagues or I actually make anything, and like all bankers before and after us, will never physically make anything. We find market mis-pricing opportunities and use our investors money to essentially gamble. It's brutal, slit throat and filled with it's own share of niceties and bitchiness, but we all love it. We aren't here to build an economy, we're here to make money. Ladies & Gentlemen, This is Finance, We Eat What We Kill.
My professional cousins on Wall street have been going through a particularly crappy time as of late, sounds like the country is finally awakening to the fact that bankers can make obscene amounts of money. The only thing more obscene is their propensity to blow it on booze, strippers, narcotics and clothing. But, frankly, I can't understand people in the United States that hate the stock market. it's been the greatest creator of wealth that the world has ever known, I'm not going to bother throwing numbers at you, but lets just say that it is very profitable.
From time to time, there will be losers in the Market; People who made stupid, ill advised or just plain moronic bets. But there will always be winners. There may be few, or there may be many, but remember that this isn't a free gravy train and just because you lose a little money (or you life's savings) the knee jerk response to blame Wall Street Bankers for making mistakes is just pathetic.
If you invested your own money in the market then you are responsible; You are the one taking the risk and are ultimately responsibly for either driving your ferrari off into the sunset or having to stand in the unemployment line. YOU, MR I GOT DUPED AND LOST EVERYTHING INVESTOR! If you aren't smart enough to hold onto your money, maybe it's best that you and your cash parted ways. As for downsizing Wall Street, Trust me you don't want Finance people to be enroaching on your suburban corporate paradise....
The following e-mail has been going around on the Street recently. I've modified it thought I might share it:
"We are Wall Street. It's our job to make money. Whether it's a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn't matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn't hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone's 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I've never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.
Well now the market crapped out, & even though it has come back somewhat, the government and the average Joes are still looking for a scapegoat. God knows there has to be one for everything. Well, here we are.
Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you're only going to hurt yourselves. What's going to happen when we can't find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We're going to take yours. We get up at 5am & work till 10pm or later. We're used to not getting up to pee when we have a position. We don't take an hour or more for a lunch break. We don't demand a union. We don't retire at 50 with a pension. We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we'll eat that.
For years teachers and other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice. Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing landscaping? We're going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the youth of America. Say goodbye to your overtime and double time and a half. I'll be hitting grounders to the high school baseball team for $5k extra a summer, thank you very much.
For years teachers and other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice. Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing landscaping? We're going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the youth of America. Say goodbye to your overtime and double time and a half. I'll be hitting grounders to the high school baseball team for $5k extra a summer, thank you very much.
So now that we're going to be making $85k a year without upside, Joe Mainstreet is going to have his revenge, right? Wrong! Guess what: we're going to stop buying the new 80k car, we aren't going to leave the 35 percent tip at our business dinners anymore. No more free rides on our backs. We're going to landscape our own back yards, wash our cars with a garden hose in our driveways. Our money was your money. You spent it. When our money dries up, so does yours.
The difference is, you lived off of it, we rejoiced in it. The Obama administration and the Democratic National Committee might get their way and knock us off the top of the pyramid, but it's really going to hurt like hell for them when our fat asses land directly on the middle class of America and knock them to the bottom.
We aren't dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive. The question is, now that Obama & his administration are making Joe Mainstreet our food supply…will he? and will they?"
I have friends here in Pakistan who are teaching in schools, journalists, working at NGO or doing jobs that really don't pay all that well and complain how their work is so much more impactful than what finance people do. Trust me, you don't want my wolf pack in your barn of chickens, we will eat you alive. You will never get another promotion, I might even concede that you may be more talented in your fields than we are, but we know how to close a deal.... You will always be playing catchup. Sacrifice is coming to work on your birthday, never taking days off and know that one or two bad days can result in unemployment. So we fight and like the free markets before us, the strong prevail.
Bankers pay the most taxes out of any segment in the Population, trust me, the government has no desire to see what their budget will look like without us. That's why they give us loop holes, because we want it to be legal and so we're not tempted to go all Bernie Madoff on your behinds.
We are Bankers, you can't win. There are winners and there are losers, we are designed to win.
I Highly Recommend You Don't Fuck With Us.
I have friends here in Pakistan who are teaching in schools, journalists, working at NGO or doing jobs that really don't pay all that well and complain how their work is so much more impactful than what finance people do. Trust me, you don't want my wolf pack in your barn of chickens, we will eat you alive. You will never get another promotion, I might even concede that you may be more talented in your fields than we are, but we know how to close a deal.... You will always be playing catchup. Sacrifice is coming to work on your birthday, never taking days off and know that one or two bad days can result in unemployment. So we fight and like the free markets before us, the strong prevail.
Bankers pay the most taxes out of any segment in the Population, trust me, the government has no desire to see what their budget will look like without us. That's why they give us loop holes, because we want it to be legal and so we're not tempted to go all Bernie Madoff on your behinds.
We are Bankers, you can't win. There are winners and there are losers, we are designed to win.
I Highly Recommend You Don't Fuck With Us.
