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Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
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WestCoast Offline
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Post: #26
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
@basil The fee is 1-2% of transaction value. Less for major transactions where it comes down to $xM on multi billion dollar deals.

If you believe an experienced sales man cannot move the needle by 100 bips. Well that's your opinion and I'll disagree with you as I've seen these negotiations in person.

I have seen transactions move 700bips. That's a ginormous move.

I will go on record here, if I ever sell a company I will hire a banker. No fucking way I am going in selling it by myself. That would be financial suicide.

Not that anyone gives a shit, the first transaction I ever worked on was valued initially at a 30% public trading premium after all the back and forth we closed it at 38.7%. We got a 2% fee, no way do I feel bad about that.
(This post was last modified: 08-22-2013 05:56 PM by WestCoast.)
08-22-2013 05:44 PM
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Post: #27
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
(08-22-2013 05:29 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  Ahh fuck it, the above comment is financial illiteracy. You cannot short a closed transaction.

Anyway honestly lol at lying about financial information on an M&A transaction. You would have the SEC and accountants up your ass in two seconds. Not to mention your bank is restricted on the security if it's public... Simply put the above comment is certainly written by someone who has never seen a single transaction in his life.

"Selling a bad company and shorting it" makes no sense to anyone with a sliver of knowledge of the space.

If anyone wants to make a logical argument based on facts I will happily answer.

If you're saying the top of Wall Street is crooks, I will agree with you to the T. But this also applies to the CEOs at any company world wide.

Call it poetic license - no need to get nasty. That's what they did (with a synthetic CDO not an actual company) and the SEC did crawl all up their ass about that particular case but even then the punishment was relatively light. And I'm sure that's the first and last time they ever pulled something like that.
08-22-2013 05:47 PM
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WestCoast Offline
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Post: #28
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
^ you're talking apples and oranges. If you're going to talk CDO and LIBOr fraud that is legitimate. That is high level executive stuff.

I am just being straight that I can tell you have no working experience, all your information is basically professors and media sources.

Anyway, libor all that other illegal stuff yes it happens at the TOP this is no different than any other C level job at say even Coca cola etc. that's how life works when you're C level at a major corporation the law will only give you a slap on the wrist.

I am speaking to Wall Street as an actual industry not just the frauds at the top. There are frauds at the top on every single industry.

No one really takes the time to see how the industry works they just read and say "they are ALL crooks". Simply false.

Again the issue is miseducation and misguided hate. The real truth is 90% of jobs on the street are hard as fuck and do require adding value or else you won't be paid ever again because your clients will leave. The news just focuses on the top, and misguides the masses to attack the industry as a whole.
(This post was last modified: 08-22-2013 06:00 PM by WestCoast.)
08-22-2013 05:52 PM
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Basil Ransom Offline
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Post: #29
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
One guy's experience:

"

1 point by lhh 18 hours ago | link | parent | cached | on: Intern’s death puts banking culture under microscope

I spent two years working as an analyst at a "bulge bracket" (ie top 10) investment bank in NYC (plus a summer as an intern). It seems that a lot of HNers are unfamiliar with the world of I-Banking, so here's the my view of what it's like, or at least what it was like in my group at my bank (though I believe my experience generalizes fairly well):
Analyst jobs are extremely competitive to land. It's an intensive interview process, and the vast majority of analysts do an internship first and are then hired on full time for the following year. As you might imagine, the job pays very well. Market rate at a bulge bracket firm for a first year analyst is $10k signing bonus, $70k base salary, and anywhere from $0 to ~$85k in bonus, though typically bonus is in the $55k - $75k range, depending on individual, group, and bank performance. As a second year, base and expected bonus each receive a $10k bump. Plus dinner is paid for every night, and lunches as well on weekends, which adds up to about another $10k. Most banks have a two year analyst program. A small percentage of analysts stay for a third year if offered (maybe 10%), and maybe 50-75% of those continue on to become associates, which puts them on track to eventually become a senior banker. Most associates were never analysts, but were instead hired in after doing an MBA.
After putting in the time as an analyst, a host of other opportunities await. Those with bulge bracket investment banking experience get all sorts of attention from recruiters. Many go on to work in private equity or for a hedge fund, both of which tend to pay significantly more than banking but with much more sane hours and a far better quality of life. Others do things like biz dev or take other misc finance roles. A very select few decide to go the startup route (eg this guy).
The combination of perceived prestige, high pay, and quality exit opportunities draw legions of juniors and seniors to apply. Senior bankers know that the role is in extremely high demand, and therefore they tend to be very tough on their analysts. If one analyst burns out, there are hundreds more frantically trying to network their way in to take their place.
There's a very clear divide between what a senior banker does and what a junior banker does. Senior bankers are glorified sales people. Their job is to maintain relationships (and develop new ones) with clients so that when the client decides to do a deal (any sort of M&A, financing, or restructuring), they'll hire the bank that employs said senior banker to execute/advise on the transaction. A junior banker's job is to do anything and everything that senior bankers tell them to do.
Junior bankers have very little control over their own lives. They're staffed on many projects at once (at one point I had 12 different projects I was juggling), and usually have minimal say on what projects they're assigned. These projects are generally all with different sets of people. Each senior banker tends to have a sub-industry and group of clients they cover, but junior bankers get shuffled around to work on any project that needs staffing. This staffing is determined by a "staffer" (usually a semi-senior banker), which is entirely discretion based. They try to make an effort to make the distribution of work equitable, but they have their job to do outside of being a staffer, and being a good staffer doesn't advance their career in the slightest, so they're not incentivized to really get this right. The work generally goes to the analyst that looks/seems the least busy.
I can't begin to describe how fucked up of a dynamic this creates. Insidious, underhanded politics. Analysts essentially forced to stay at the office until everyone above them has left the office regardless of whether or not they have anything to do. If you leave before the staffer leaves, you're guaranteed to get hit with the next staffing. If you leave before everyone above your level has left, they'll be bitching the next day about how they're working so hard even the analysts are leaving before them. Analysts subtly dropping hints to senior bankers about how much harder they're working than the other analysts, both in an effort to get staffing diverted away from themselves and because analysts all get ranked against each other at the end of the year, which determines their bonus. Analysts are ranked on a bell curve against each other, and bonus payouts among them are a zero-sum game. Recruiters and interviewers will ask you point-blank what your ranking and compensation was.
Analysts carry a blackberry with them at all times, and a staffing can blow up their next two weeks literally at any moment. You live in constant fear that that little red light blinking on your blackberry isn't another staffing or fire drill (ie "emergency" work that needs to be done immediately). You can't plan anything. Being too slow to respond to emails, including at midnight on weekends, is grounds for getting sat down for a stern conversation in a conference room. My blackberry was never more than 20 ft away from me for two solid years.
My average day was about 9:30am - 12:30am on weekdays, and about noon to 6pm on weekends. I didn't have my first day off, including weekends, until 4 months into the job. Sometimes it was as light as 50 hours per week, and sometimes as bad as 110+. Some of the time you actually have so much work to do that you're eating every meal at your desk and working solid the entire time, especially if you're working on a live deal, but a lot of the time you're just waiting around for other people to get back to you. They give you some work to do on a document or presentation, you spend a few hours doing it and get it back to them, and then you wait for them to get it back to you for another round of edits. You'll usually be doing this with 4 or 5 projects at a time, all with varying levels of complexity and urgency. This is one good part about the job. During the "day shift", life usually isn't so bad. A lot of times you can get away with long lunches and frequent starbucks runs without anyone really noticing. But then after a fairly leisurely day, come around 5pm or so, the "night shift" starts. You'll get edits to do for all of your projects at once and occasionally end up pulling an all nighter, even when the majority of the work you're doing involves formatting charts, transcribing pages of handwritten notes, and various other trivial, mind-numbing tasks.
You'd be amazed at how much effort we'd be asked to expend on some task relative to the benefit that that task could possibly hope to provide. Like put together this 10 page weekly update for every company in X industry, including what research analysts said about them that week, what the media has said about them, individual product sales, graphs of their stock price movements and their valuation multiples, etc. All painfully slow, manual work. There were 40-50 companies in this industry. For an update that was sent to a single client. Unsolicited. When the CFO hated the senior banker who ordered the update and would never do a deal with him in his life. Doing mind-numbing work is one thing, but spending hours and hours doing it when you know it's all for nothing is an indescribable feeling. I wanted to bash my head in with a stapler. It took me THREE MONTHS to finally convince the staffer to tell the senior banker it wasn't going to happen anymore. All sorts of absurd shit like this was thrust upon us in the name of potentially winning business.
I could keep going and probably fill several volumes about how horrible of an experience it was, but I'll stop there. The best day of my life to date was the day I turned in my blackberry and walked out of the building for the last time. I don't think that the people I worked with were inherently evil or anything like that. All else equal, they'd be senstive to our well being. But at the end of the day, we were just another class of indentured servants, like the many classes they'd seen before us and the many they'd see after.
When I would describe my life to friends and people I'd meet that weren't a part of the finance world, they would literally think I was making things up. The idea that someone would be willing to subject themselves to such insanity, or more accurately that an employer would demand it, wasn't part of their world view. I assure you, it was really that bad. I'm a pretty stable person, but there were a couple times where I came very close to coming unglued. Somehow we managed to convince ourselves it was all worth it. The jury's still out on that one."
08-22-2013 06:48 PM
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WestCoast Offline
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Post: #30
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
^ lol typical bitter second year.

Guarantee he was not a top bucket analyst. Because he states in there "recruiters will ask you point blank your rank".

The fact he called his out in his diatribe means he was not top tier. Why? If you're top tier this is where you smile and say "Ranked #1"

Get ready for a 45% base only pay increase (of course bonus increase too).

Oh the nail in the coffin on him. Not being top tier is having the MD's and VP's not backing him up. He wasn't good at politics, it is what it is. Survive a decade and you won't work for 40 years if you don't want to.

Yes it is glorified sales just look at my examples in this thread that's how it works.

The best emails are not the good bye emails from associates, not the I am pursuing other interests.

The best emails I see are the ones that make me cry tears if joy.

"It's been real, it has been fun. It's time to take my money, and run mother fucker run".

Those are always personal to personal account. You will never in your life see a man as happy as that.

These people usually hit at low 30's.
(This post was last modified: 08-22-2013 07:03 PM by WestCoast.)
08-22-2013 06:54 PM
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Post: #31
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
(08-22-2013 06:54 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  ^ lol typical bitter second year.

Guarantee he was not a top bucket analyst. Because he states in there "recruiters will ask you point blank your rank".

The fact he called his out in his diatribe means he was not top tier. Why? If you're top tier this is where you smile and say "Ranked #1"

Get ready for a 45% base only pay increase (of course bonus increase too).

Oh the nail in the coffin on him. Not being top tier is having the MD's and VP's not backing him up. He wasn't good at politics, it is what it is. Survive a decade and you won't work for 40 years if you don't want to.

Yes it is glorified sales just look at my examples in this thread that's how it works.

The best emails are not the good bye emails from associates, not the I am pursuing other interests.

The best emails I see are the ones that make me cry tears if joy.

"It's been real, it has been fun. It's time to take my money, and run mother fucker run".

Those are always personal to personal account. You will never in your life see a man as happy as that.

These people usually hit at low 30's.

Having your life come down to politics isn't much of a life at all.

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08-22-2013 07:05 PM
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WestCoast Offline
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Post: #32
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
^ misunderstanding of statement. It means the higher ups didn't like him as a person.

Typical mediocre analyst. Did great work but was a horrible complainer and bitched all the time.

Instead you get drunk with your md. Ask them about their lives/kids. Bullshit about hockey.

You can be a normal person and do a good job.

Most analysts just do their job and forget that it's a sales role long term. If you can't get your boss to like you how are you going to handle an enraged client? You got no chance in hell of them wanting you around.

Most just rationalize the industry wasn't for them when in reality they can't take criticism, they can't take the emotional torture of being nice to a CEO at 2am. They see the present pain and quit because they don't get it.

3 years in the job is chill, 50-60 hours. Who cares at that point an extra 10-20 hours for 50% more pay. No brainer.
(This post was last modified: 08-22-2013 07:14 PM by WestCoast.)
08-22-2013 07:08 PM
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Que enspastic Offline
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Post: #33
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
What some call "politics" others call "people skills".
08-22-2013 07:27 PM
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WestCoast Offline
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Post: #34
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
^ yep.

People make ridiculous excuses.

"Politics screwed me" = I am shitty to work with
"The job had too many hours" = I was inefficient as hell
"My boss is mean" = I had errors in my work

If you do good work (helping md make money) and you're cool to work with. What are the chances he wants to let you go? Negative 7 million.

He will help you. There is no industry that is different, if anything the street is more meritocratic than *most* industries.
(This post was last modified: 08-22-2013 07:31 PM by WestCoast.)
08-22-2013 07:30 PM
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Post: #35
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
The banks paid back TARP but TARP was only a slice of the bailouts.

The bailouts included, among other things, giving Goldman Sachs and other big banks access to the Fed's discount window program.

Banks borrowed money at 0.25% and then bought Treasuries at 3.5%.

That's 3% of free money.

Goldman Sachs never paid back the $13 billion that the Fed laundered through AIG and onto Goldman's balance sheet.

Also, by recognizing that some banks are Too Big Too Fail, the government has de facto admitted it will bail out banks. This means that banks can make even riskier bets because Uncle Sam is in essence co-signing Wall Street's loans.

There were a lot of shadow bailouts and Wall Street has never come near to repaying the bailouts and never will.
(This post was last modified: 08-22-2013 07:34 PM by MikeCF.)
08-22-2013 07:33 PM
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WestCoast Offline
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Post: #36
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
Yeah I'll disagree with the above

Goldmans books were not buying treasuries.

Also I disagree on letting banks fail, the USA would be even worse off.

You were basically forced to allow banks to fail or allow them to be bailed out. I can return with an elongated response if people care.
(This post was last modified: 08-22-2013 07:39 PM by WestCoast.)
08-22-2013 07:37 PM
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Samseau Offline
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Post: #37
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
(08-22-2013 07:08 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  ^ misunderstanding of statement. It means the higher ups didn't like him as a person.

Typical mediocre analyst. Did great work but was a horrible complainer and bitched all the time.

Instead you get drunk with your md. Ask them about their lives/kids. Bullshit about hockey.

You can be a normal person and do a good job.

Most analysts just do their job and forget that it's a sales role long term. If you can't get your boss to like you how are you going to handle an enraged client? You got no chance in hell of them wanting you around.

Most just rationalize the industry wasn't for them when in reality they can't take criticism, they can't take the emotional torture of being nice to a CEO at 2am. They see the present pain and quit because they don't get it.

3 years in the job is chill, 50-60 hours. Who cares at that point an extra 10-20 hours for 50% more pay. No brainer.

It's you and 50 other lackeys all kissing ass to get to the top. What makes you think you'll be the chosen one?

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08-22-2013 07:37 PM
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WestCoast Offline
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Post: #38
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
^ again misunderstanding.

90% of analysts do not "kiss ass" as you call it.

90% complain all day about the hours. They can't control their emotions.

If you honestly do good work and are not a bitch at work and are a cool guy that's all you need.

Easier said than done when you pull 50 hours straight. Just reading basils post above and you can tell the guy was a typical complainer. Just look at the language in it.

People who say they "hate" politics = translation = I can't get people I dislike to like me because I can't control my own emotions.

People who hate politics like to "speak their mind" because they think they are important. When in reality they don't matter for shit and should just chill out be cool even if you dislike someone. You don't need to tell them they are the next frank quattrone or some shit.
(This post was last modified: 08-22-2013 07:46 PM by WestCoast.)
08-22-2013 07:40 PM
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Lou pai Offline
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Post: #39
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
GM and the car industry also got bailed out. No one complains about that. Not many people understand what Wall Street does. You tell the average person you work in banking, they think you are a teller at your local chase.

On top of that their was a major push by the government to encourage banks to loan out subprime loans.
08-22-2013 09:09 PM
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Post: #40
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
^ Yep basically banks were forced to loan to the poor by govt, so they came up with grouped loans... shit show ensues.

Anyway I know MikeCF in real life so i would take a TARP debate offline with him. Basically you can run the numbers and the bailout was a solvency issue. Even if you got 3% returns for free that's not going to get you enough money to pay back any loan. $100B * 3% = $3B. Then they pay back whatever $97B. That's not really moving the needle on GS's bottom line. It was to prevent a collapse.

Also at the time treasury rates were at 2.5% or so and even lower for 2 years at sub 1%
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/...ation.aspx

... So again a 1.25% spread for goldman is hardly killing it.

Then you run into the issue of all these guys calling goldman sachs an investment bank and i want to punch my computer screen. Less than 20% of revenue comes from goldman sachs investment banking division
http://www.goldmansachs.com/investor-rel...3-10-q.pdf

But everyone who works at goldman is an investment banker to the masses, fucking LOL.

Then that gets me on the whole prestige and finance thing and i see my hair turning grey. Then i finally look out the window and realize i am wasting my time (but i do this to myself once every few months on here anyway) engaging in Wall St conversations when I shouldnt. I read some of that stuff in the lifestyle forum but usually am able to avoid commenting unless I can add value. Hopefully at least some people understand, after reading this thread, that not ALL investment bankers are dicks leeching money. Also yes the higher ups at any major bank = criminals like corzine and blankfield. But I can say that about every single CEO out there so that ain't saying much.

Anyway to keep the thread from derailment. That original article is just a fluke/freak incident. Just don't go and work for Moelis or UBS LA and you're gonna be alright.

Don't think your opinion matters the rule in finance (promotion wise is right here)
Entry level = do as your told perfectly
Next level = Do the job without being told what to do
Next Level = Help generate revenue while overlooking layers 1 and 2
Next Level = Generate enough revenue so you no longer worry about level 1 two and three.

If you have a personality you will more likely than not, exit before spending much time between level 3 and 4. You don't need a $10M exit number. No one does.
(This post was last modified: 08-22-2013 09:47 PM by WestCoast.)
08-22-2013 09:40 PM
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Post: #41
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
I work in an investment bank literally down the road from where this guy worked.

I work in creative services doing graphic design and we get all the interns and analysts coming over to offload their work to us. That can be anything from presentations, logo work, brochures, etc.

I got talking to one of the interns this summer, she's pretty hot and had every intern guy surround her. She was finishing off at the same time as me some nights and I'd catch her in the lift. I work shifts and finish at 2am, she was getting off at that time (sometimes later) and coming back in for 9am.

I get the impression from the way the analysts work and bow down to those above them is that they're the bitches. I have no idea how much they actually do when deals are being made, but all the work I ever see them do is touching up presentations and doing the work their bosses can't be arsed doing.

Obviously that's a bit ignorant to say since I don't know the ins and outs of what happens but that is the general impression. The analysts and interns stay late to finish the work the managers don't have time to do because they clock off.

I've seen guys working 24 hours straight and they're miserable as fuck. Not one person have I spoken to has said they're happy. "It's only for 3 years and then it all goes down".

I can't comprehend working for other people as it is, but sacrificing your life for a bank doesn't make sense to me in the slightest. These guys have no lives and the toll it takes on your body long term is drastic.

About the lad who died, I don't think he killed himself. I think he genuinely was exhausted. I remember reading about some 17/18 year old kid in Asia staying up last summer to watch Euro 2012 and he was pulling all nighters frequently to watch all the games. Sounds like the same thing. Pulling EIGHT all nighters in FOURTEEN days. Your body will shut down under all that stress of working and activity.

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(This post was last modified: 08-22-2013 10:01 PM by Matt3B.)
08-22-2013 10:00 PM
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Post: #42
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
^ yeah most the work is simply grunt work. The intern again worked himself to death trying to please.

Interns are value subtract for an investment bank. You will not get real work for a 10 week internship. Why would they give you real work? They are just going to give you bullshit work. Just like any other internship in any other industry in the history of man kind.

Show me one guy who interned at a major corporation and "changed how the place operates" and i'll show you a Pinocchio or B) the next mark zuk.

Your experience proves my point. Most of them are bitter and hate their lives because they have NO FUCKING CLUE what they just signed up for. People just see the $140K first year out of college and go WOO HOO! This is a set up for disaster.

Wall Street is poker. Whoever survives the longest wins. Most people don't make it into the industry. We get 100's of resumes a DAY. Of those people that make it in 90% don't get it and suck = 10% is left. Those 10% now start making good money with a decent life style where you work 50-60 hrs per week. Then you see an attrition rate of roughly 25% every year after that.

Its simply a trade off. Are you willing to grind for three years. If the answer is even a slight no, don't bother applying. If the answer is yes. Every year post year 3 is going to be down payment on a house in your bank account.
(This post was last modified: 08-22-2013 10:14 PM by WestCoast.)
08-22-2013 10:06 PM
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Post: #43
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
Finance, cash, private property, insurance, real estate, etc is the industry of organizing productive human effort. It really is a huge social industry at it's core, and a big part (not all) of finance is gaming the system that has been created. A big source of hate about wall street probably comes from the regulatory capture the finance industry has and amount of GDP of the world economy they take for what is ultimately an organizing function. It's also where much of the elite like to sit and pull the levers of society with.

My problem with wall street is that it can be pretty inefficient with the human labor and it seems to take too much of the GDP %. Kind of like American healthcare is double the size it should be. It feels like a system that eventually could be metaphorically replaced with something like Zillow replacing all of the Real Estate agents. I don't know if it's hazing is just used to filter out people after the relatively easy money or what else it is. I don't work on wall street although, so I only have a rudimentary understanding of it. I understand the pull. I'm a guy with a pile of money doing shit all and I want a better return. That is a really powerful driving force.
08-27-2013 12:14 PM
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Lou pai Offline
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Post: #44
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
Finance already has something like zillow, its called discount brokers such as Charles schwab, etrade, fidelity, vanguard, etc. Zillow would not affect investment banking it affects retail brokers. I work in private wealth management and from my experience individuals who ask wall street firms to manage their money are not worried about costs but worried about service. I charge a lot more than discount brokers but people value my service because of access to products, information, and services your discount broker could not do.
08-27-2013 01:36 PM
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Grit Offline
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Post: #45
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
Been seeing this story lingering around. I'm confused at the media's attention to this. He is an entitled white college prep kid who modelled his life off Gordon Gecko, archtypal image of a Wall street shark.

Yet the media is portraying him as an innocent delicate.....child.

Seems like they really go out of their way to sell sob stories to middle class women, who need a good emotional sniff.
09-06-2013 07:24 PM
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WestCoast Offline
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Post: #46
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
So much bad info in here.

Gordon gekko reference to this kid? That's like me referencing Kobe Bryant as the best baseball player in history. Even if the kid was a future star, it still makes no sense because it's unrelated. Next thing you know someone is going to use the wolf of Wall Street as a "legit movie" to reflect current Wall Street dynamics.

Then you got zillow and investment banking? Hell zillow is a great thing for firms on the street. Even lending club is a great thing for the street but people just don't get it.

I find it ridiculous that Wall Street takes the top 1% of the top 1% schools but people who can't even read a financial statement think they are so much brighter than them. Feel free to take a job then and get ready to get obliterated with work.
(This post was last modified: 09-06-2013 07:52 PM by WestCoast.)
09-06-2013 07:49 PM
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LeBeau
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Post: #47
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
(09-06-2013 07:49 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  I find it ridiculous that Wall Street takes the top 1% of the top 1% schools but people who can't even read a financial statement think they are so much brighter than them. Feel free to take a job then and get ready to get obliterated with work.

This reminds me of an old meme.

"Took economics 1010

[Image: college-freshman-meme-beers-492x250.jpg]


Knows how to fix the economy"

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09-06-2013 08:03 PM
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Grit Offline
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Post: #48
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
(09-06-2013 07:49 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  So much bad info in here.

Gordon gekko reference to this kid? That's like me referencing Kobe Bryant as the best baseball player in history. Even if the kid was a future star, it still makes no sense because it's unrelated. Next thing you know someone is going to use the wolf of Wall Street as a "legit movie" to reflect current Wall Street dynamics.

Then you got zillow and investment banking? Hell zillow is a great thing for firms on the street. Even lending club is a great thing for the street but people just don't get it.

I find it ridiculous that Wall Street takes the top 1% of the top 1% schools but people who can't even read a financial statement think they are so much brighter than them. Feel free to take a job then and get ready to get obliterated with work.

The 'kid' supposedly modelled himself off of gekko.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...treet.html

I don't care about the guy, i'm more interested in the narrative that the media is portraying. Is the media on board with the 1% or the 99%? I thought wall street types were "evil".

On the other hand, we have the media writing about how this guy was "sunshine" to his parents. A stand up character. Great guy.

which is it?
(This post was last modified: 09-06-2013 11:04 PM by Grit.)
09-06-2013 11:03 PM
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Vendetta Offline
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Post: #49
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
No 21 year old should die due to a few hours missing sleep.

There has to be more to this story than tiredness.

Either drugs or a preexisting condition.

Maybe this epilepsy rumour.
09-06-2013 11:18 PM
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WestCoast Offline
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Post: #50
RE: Bank of America Intern's Death Highlights Risks of Working Long Hours
I will try again. Anyone who thinks all Wall Street people are evil are full of shit and don't know squat about finance. Ask them to explain a simple 3 statement model and they will shit themselves. The people who hate on all of the people on the street with 100% certainty don't know anything about it. Hell they probably can't even read a 10-K!

The article is just trying to paint him as a hard nosed kid. Gordon Gekko and investment banking are unrelated if you understand the jobs. It just means he wanted to become a BSD, like every bright eyed kid who starts in the industry. (FYI guys Gekko was a PM in the movie not an investment banker, another LOL at the wolf of Wall Street who was a broker a broker!!??? They make $40K a year now, there is no real "chop" on trades now)

This is an interesting story because it is making people question the industry take a deeper look.

1. They can't call him lazy
2. They can't be assholes about his parents
3. They can't blame the bank
4. They can't rationalize he got the job through a hook up

The dude murdered himself to get that fucking job and got it.

What's the solution? Bring in a mainstream "movie character" that the masses can relate to so this news gets swept under a miscellaneous odd event category.

No one wants the truth which is that 99.999999999% of people who read about that article or his death would never have a flying fucking chance of lasting through a real career on the Street. You become a deranged person for a few years, you will do drugs, you will think about killing yourself. One guy I worked with faked a heart attack and went to the hospital just to get 1 day off. It breaks you. You will not be the same person. (Anyone really still confused as to why Wall Street pay is high?)

Knowing that it breaks you down, how can the media continue to portray all Wall Street people as "evil 1%ers?". They cannot. So they are spinning it around.

The most important quote is what I said right here in my first post

"It is thought he had been trying to impress bosses and collapsed after having an epileptic fit or seizure."

Your question is the exact reason why the media is frustrated. Which one is it? They can't peg him as a 1%er. So they are doing the best they can to dilute the news.

Media is basically fucked on turning this thing into a Wall Street is evil piece so there you have a neutral confusing article.i believe the quotes of his parents, most people who enter the industry want to make a difference and donate in the future. Hell most managing directors (not Ceo's) run of the mill MDs donate $100K or so a year to charity. All the bullshit needs to end when someone tells you all of them are evil ask them what they have done to give back with their money and they will curl up in a ball and simply give you "well,ifffff I was himmmm". Just LOL, you can't do what if scenarios with your moral superiority if you've accomplished nothing.

Anyway end of rant that's what's going on, look around at all the people who hate on everyone on the street (all of them) and none of them work hard at all. It's simply the truth. The smart ones understand the difference.

Caveat: yeah the top = lazy and rich + privleged cuntx, but again that's the top in every single industry in history.

Don't believe everything you read the media it is such a joke I don't even know where to begin, least I tried here again.
(This post was last modified: 09-07-2013 12:00 AM by WestCoast.)
09-06-2013 11:35 PM
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