[Jotapay]

5.????

I agree with your post, Jotapay, just having a little fun at your expense

PS: Didn't this thread used to have a different title?

Hah! You're right. There were a handful of people, but I guess that handful didn't actually make it to five.

I changed the title, I didn't think 'whores' was completely appropriate although it might be what I would have said in less discreet company.

[basil_hayden]

Posts in this thread have a deep undercurrent of jealousy, I find it rather ridiculous.

It's not jealousy.

It's disdain, and/or disgust.

You bastiges don't WORK for a living, you gamble with other people's money. You produce nothing of value. Whether things go right or wrong, apparently you get a bonus either way. Investment bankers operate, as a group, outside of reality.

The cool part is the women seeking investment bankers have the same short-term goals; it must suck when the tables are turned. LOL

From your comments, one can tell that you know little to nothing about that industry. I have never worked as an IBanker, I was in Prime Brokerage, but I have seen just how hard these guys work. My first job was a trench digger, so I might know a little bit about putting in a solid day's effort.

Xerces-


Do you understand the difference between jealousy and disgust? One implies I want to be them (which couldn't be further from the truth) and the other implies I'd never want to be them (Bingo!).

As I respect your efforts in mini urban gardening and am a former trench digger myself, I'd like a couple questions answered instead of me just going off with both barrels, which is likely to occur eventuallly anyway, hehe.

1. Can you tell me how investment banking or brokering is more laborious than trench digging?

2. What was used in the process of investment banking or brokering and what did it produce of value and why can't these folks be relaced with a computer program like the ATM has done to the bank teller?

As Jotopay implied, it's not what you know but who you know; and how far you're willing to push it in the name of self. I may not be as close to it as Xerces, but I've been exposed repeatedly against my will.

[dbruning]

"5.???? "

It should go without saying that he is the 5th!!!

[xerces]

Posts in this thread have a deep undercurrent of jealousy, I find it rather ridiculous.

It's not jealousy.

It's disdain, and/or disgust.

You bastiges don't WORK for a living, you gamble with other people's money. You produce nothing of value. Whether things go right or wrong, apparently you get a bonus either way. Investment bankers operate, as a group, outside of reality.

The cool part is the women seeking investment bankers have the same short-term goals; it must suck when the tables are turned. LOL

From your comments, one can tell that you know little to nothing about that industry. I have never worked as an IBanker, I was in Prime Brokerage, but I have seen just how hard these guys work. My first job was a trench digger, so I might know a little bit about putting in a solid day's effort.

Xerces-


Do you understand the difference between jealousy and disgust? One implies I want to be them (which couldn't be further from the truth) and the other implies I'd never want to be them (Bingo!).

As I respect your efforts in mini urban gardening and am a former trench digger myself, I'd like a couple questions answered instead of me just going off with both barrels, which is likely to occur eventuallly anyway, hehe.

1. Can you tell me how investment banking or brokering is more laborious than trench digging?

2. What was used in the process of investment banking or brokering and what did it produce of value and why can't these folks be relaced with a computer program like the ATM has done to the bank teller?

As Jotopay implied, it's not what you know but who you know; and how far you're willing to push it in the name of self. I may not be as close to it as Xerces, but I've been exposed repeatedly against my will.

1. Trench digging is hard work, but the task itself is fairly straightforward. It's easy to get the job done right, the company is generally amicable, and it's only 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.. I was paid $10 dollars an hour to do that.

Financial Services does not require as much physical labor, but each problem is much harder to solve. How do you know whether this company in a sector is better than another one? What types of quantitative analysis do you run? What data do you run against? What kind of a model are you running? Can you trust the data or do you think the company is lying to you?

This job is 12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now since most Investment banks have a 20% minimum attrition policy(1 out of 5 analysts/associates is let go every year, regardless of how well the Bank does), the competition is fiercely competitive. So the work environment is horrible, all of your peers are trying to edge you out of the game by all means possible. The VPs and Executive Directors are cruel and intolerant of mistakes. You suffer through verbal and emotional abuse on a daily basis. All of this for $15 an hour.

For me, it got to the point where I was having nightmares EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Financial Services is MUCH harder than digging trenches. After a normal day of trench-digging, I had a sore back. After a normal day at Morgan Stanley, I had a sore back, carpal tunnel, bloodshot eyes, strained nerves, canker sores, upset stomach, and light emotional trauma.

So I definitely feel these IBank analysts and associates (~90% of all Ibankers) deserve at least a small degree of our compassion. And I perfectly understand why they blow their relatively small salaries on Trophy Girlfriends.


2.
In my opinion, the Financial services sector, if run correctly, should serve as an efficient means of allocating resources to economic sectors that most needs resources. The market is not in a state of perfect competition, and small startups with important innovations could be snuffed out my larger corporations fearing competition. That's where IBanking, if implemented CORRECTLY, can add great value. The trouble is that the Financial Sector is not running properly, much like our healthcare, automotive, and education sectors.

Would it be possible someday for algorithms to do this kind of analysis? Sure, some of it are done by algorithms today. Just like how cars and houses nowadays are mostly pre-fabricated/pre-assembled by robots.

[ReverseEngineer]

So I definitely feel these IBank analysts and associates (~90% of all Ibankers) deserve at least a small degree of our compassion. And I perfectly understand why they blow their relatively small salaries on Trophy Girlfriends.

Of course there are many Wannabee Pigmen in the "Trenches", coming out of Bizness Skule with MBAs working and suffering the endless dressing down for a loss they took on a trade or a client lost as they put in their 100 hour work weeks with some Medium Level Pigman above them who made it thru that period cracking the Whip all the time. I was there also for a time, working for the Money Manager's office at Merrill right out of High School, then briefly for Drexel as a Risk Analyst after College. I was somewhat less subject to the kind of pressure traders had because I was just a human computer really, somebody who could take numbers and digest them for others to make decisions on. While these jobs paid pretty well, it still was pretty distasteful work overall. I was working for people I considered idiots, and the system itself made no sense really. I had to quit doing that, I just hated it.

Is this "hard work"? Of course in a sense it is, because its very stressful for the climbers. It also however is not really productive work, and mostly you just serve as a tool by which those at the top of the chain reap their profits. You might hang on trying to climb into one of those postions of REAL power, but frankly they are mostly reserved for folks with the right connections who move quickly out of the trenches into positions of power. As a worker in this industry, if you do it all you are doing is perpetuating a bad system, and I could not do that even for the money involved. Besides, I just hated wearing a suit and tie. Made me feel like a Penguin. LOL.

Compared to the labor involved in working in a Coal Mine however, along with all the stresses of trying to feed your family on meager wages, you cannot really compare the difficulty of one to another. Apples and Oranges. By no means however does anyone who works in this industry, despite the fact they might have survived their time in the trenches deserve Paydays in the Millions, while equally hard working Coal Miners and Teachers and all the rest of people are paid in the Thousands. Its a very poor distribution of wealth with respect to work and productivity overall. I doesn't really have any intrinsic value to society, rather it is a leech upon society, sucking wealth out as an intermediary in the trading system. As long as there was plenty of Blood out there to leech out (resources), the bigger leeches got the bigger portions of the wealth. Now that there is not so much Blood, the biggest leeches are dying of starvation first.

The other dynamic you have to consider is how this culture of Greed affects the people who work in that industry, and the profligate spedning of the wealth that was accumulated through these means. To show your success, to benefit from it and revel in it, your goal was to have the biggest Penthouse, the most lines of Coke laid out on the mirror, the prettiest Models from Ford at your Parties. Real Players fly around in their own Jets, they don't ride coach with the Hoi Polloi, even First Class on a Commercial Airliner is beneath them. What do these folks really DO though? They mainly just hold positions of power which enable them to leech out the wealth of others systematically. It all comes from the earth in the end, and too many leeches sucking too much too fast depletes the host and so they ALL die in this system. Its fundamentally unsustainable, it HAD to fail, and so it is now. I knew it would, I just did not know when. Now I know.

For the people who bought into this system, even the apparatchiks who did so at the expense of their souls, being berated by their bosses and stressing out in 100 hour work weeks, they made a compact with the Devil, and they lost the bet. Do I feel the least bit sorry for any of them, the $100K a year trenchers just trying to make ends meet in NYC, where a one bedroom apt could cost you $2500 a month or more? No I do not. If you were so stupid as to buy this game, you now reap the results of that, its YOUR problem, not MY problem. Wannabee Pigmen are not a whole lot different than the Pigmen themselves, they serve also as the apparatchiks of Satan. They will Burn in Hell also.

Reverse Engineer

[nobodypanic]

Sorry, but these people who were earning 100k, maybe 200k are just workers like us. OK, they got lucky. But they're not pigmen.

the hell you say! just like whom??? try telling that to some guy flipping burgers or laying asphalt for a living.

after years of attempting to make everyone believe they were a 'cut above' most, all of a sudden people making 200k want to be thought of as nothing more than j6p? is that right?

[davep]

Sorry, but these people who were earning 100k, maybe 200k are just workers like us. OK, they got lucky. But they're not pigmen.

the hell you say! just like whom??? try telling that to some guy flipping burgers or laying asphalt for a living.

after years of attempting to make everyone believe they were a 'cut above' most, all of a sudden people making 200k want to be thought of as nothing more than j6p? is that right?

Did I say that? No. I used to work 12 hour nights breaking concrete with pneumatic drills. We would be stupid not to try to better ourselves.

I worked for Morgan Stanley in the nineties, with the Equity Research guys. They are a smart bunch, but after a while I left, and went back to my Family in France because Family counts for more than money.

Remember, it isn't people who happen to find a good way to make money who are at fault here, it's those who lobbied for deregulation and sat in the shadows, raking in the money.

I don't particularly like the braying rugby playing public schoolboys who tend to go into finance, but that's not a reason to demonise them. We need to be clear who orchestrated this, it was the bankers who lobbied government (and the government themselves for allowing themselves to be corrupted). The minions were merely wannabe yuppies.

[auscanman]

So I definitely feel these IBank analysts and associates (~90% of all Ibankers) deserve at least a small degree of our compassion. And I perfectly understand why they blow their relatively small salaries on Trophy Girlfriends.

Of course there are many Wannabee Pigmen in the "Trenches", coming out of Bizness Skule with MBAs working and suffering the endless dressing down for a loss they took on a trade or a client lost as they put in their 100 hour work weeks with some Medium Level Pigman above them who made it thru that period cracking the Whip all the time. I was there also for a time, working for the Money Manager's office at Merrill right out of High School, then briefly for Drexel as a Risk Analyst after College. I was somewhat less subject to the kind of pressure traders had because I was just a human computer really, somebody who could take numbers and digest them for others to make decisions on. While these jobs paid pretty well, it still was pretty distasteful work overall. I was working for people I considered idiots, and the system itself made no sense really. I had to quit doing that, I just hated it.

Is this "hard work"? Of course in a sense it is, because its very stressful for the climbers. It also however is not really productive work, and mostly you just serve as a tool by which those at the top of the chain reap their profits. You might hang on trying to climb into one of those postions of REAL power, but frankly they are mostly reserved for folks with the right connections who move quickly out of the trenches into positions of power. As a worker in this industry, if you do it all you are doing is perpetuating a bad system, and I could not do that even for the money involved. Besides, I just hated wearing a suit and tie. Made me feel like a Penguin. LOL.

Compared to the labor involved in working in a Coal Mine however, along with all the stresses of trying to feed your family on meager wages, you cannot really compare the difficulty of one to another. Apples and Oranges. By no means however does anyone who works in this industry, despite the fact they might have survived their time in the trenches deserve Paydays in the Millions, while equally hard working Coal Miners and Teachers and all the rest of people are paid in the Thousands. Its a very poor distribution of wealth with respect to work and productivity overall. I doesn't really have any intrinsic value to society, rather it is a leech upon society, sucking wealth out as an intermediary in the trading system. As long as there was plenty of Blood out there to leech out (resources), the bigger leeches got the bigger portions of the wealth. Now that there is not so much Blood, the biggest leeches are dying of starvation first.

The other dynamic you have to consider is how this culture of Greed affects the people who work in that industry, and the profligate spedning of the wealth that was accumulated through these means. To show your success, to benefit from it and revel in it, your goal was to have the biggest Penthouse, the most lines of Coke laid out on the mirror, the prettiest Models from Ford at your Parties. Real Players fly around in their own Jets, they don't ride coach with the Hoi Polloi, even First Class on a Commercial Airliner is beneath them. What do these folks really DO though? They mainly just hold positions of power which enable them to leech out the wealth of others systematically. It all comes from the earth in the end, and too many leeches sucking too much too fast depletes the host and so they ALL die in this system. Its fundamentally unsustainable, it HAD to fail, and so it is now. I knew it would, I just did not know when. Now I know.

For the people who bought into this system, even the apparatchiks who did so at the expense of their souls, being berated by their bosses and stressing out in 100 hour work weeks, they made a compact with the Devil, and they lost the bet. Do I feel the least bit sorry for any of them, the $100K a year trenchers just trying to make ends meet in NYC, where a one bedroom apt could cost you $2500 a month or more? No I do not. If you were so stupid as to buy this game, you now reap the results of that, its YOUR problem, not MY problem. Wannabee Pigmen are not a whole lot different than the Pigmen themselves, they serve also as the apparatchiks of Satan. They will Burn in Hell also.

Reverse Engineer

I pretty much agree with all you've said.

I was lucky enough to grow up living in various places around the world and went to international schools wherever I lived. Of the friends I had from the schools growing up, just about everyone is in New York or London. Evidently these two cities are the meccas for the twentysomething globalists. Quite a few are in IBanking. I've asked them what it is about IBanking that justifies the high salaries. I have yet to receive any kind of comprehensible answer, let alone a good one.

Based on my observations of others around my age, I think they are for the most part completely lost and misguided. The almighty dollar is all that matters to most of them, rather than actual quality of life, and few seem to even have the ability to assess their quality of life. This is a big part of the reason why NY and London, and the accompanying high salaries are such major draws for them. Nevermind the fact that most of those salaries will be eaten up meeting their essential needs.

This leads to an interesting point on human nature. We are, inherently, competitive critters. That competitiveness has become all the more important to get ahead recently, and has been glorified by media and every facet of western society. Taking the inability of twentysomethings to factor in quality of life, our inherent competitiveness, and western society's values into account, my belief is that most twentysomethings (and almost all my former classmates) would rather be competing against one another in a rat race than enjoying a truly high quality of life elsewhere devoid of that same type of competition. The desire to be doing a job that adds true value to the world is virtually non-existent amongst my age group, so not even worth talking about! I fear that as my age group become the dominant force, the world (or what's left of it) will become a MUCH uglier place.

[davep]

So I definitely feel these IBank analysts and associates (~90% of all Ibankers) deserve at least a small degree of our compassion. And I perfectly understand why they blow their relatively small salaries on Trophy Girlfriends.

Of course there are many Wannabee Pigmen in the "Trenches", coming out of Bizness Skule with MBAs working and suffering the endless dressing down for a loss they took on a trade or a client lost as they put in their 100 hour work weeks with some Medium Level Pigman above them who made it thru that period cracking the Whip all the time. I was there also for a time, working for the Money Manager's office at Merrill right out of High School, then briefly for Drexel as a Risk Analyst after College. I was somewhat less subject to the kind of pressure traders had because I was just a human computer really, somebody who could take numbers and digest them for others to make decisions on. While these jobs paid pretty well, it still was pretty distasteful work overall. I was working for people I considered idiots, and the system itself made no sense really. I had to quit doing that, I just hated it.

Is this "hard work"? Of course in a sense it is, because its very stressful for the climbers. It also however is not really productive work, and mostly you just serve as a tool by which those at the top of the chain reap their profits. You might hang on trying to climb into one of those postions of REAL power, but frankly they are mostly reserved for folks with the right connections who move quickly out of the trenches into positions of power. As a worker in this industry, if you do it all you are doing is perpetuating a bad system, and I could not do that even for the money involved. Besides, I just hated wearing a suit and tie. Made me feel like a Penguin. LOL.

Compared to the labor involved in working in a Coal Mine however, along with all the stresses of trying to feed your family on meager wages, you cannot really compare the difficulty of one to another. Apples and Oranges. By no means however does anyone who works in this industry, despite the fact they might have survived their time in the trenches deserve Paydays in the Millions, while equally hard working Coal Miners and Teachers and all the rest of people are paid in the Thousands. Its a very poor distribution of wealth with respect to work and productivity overall. I doesn't really have any intrinsic value to society, rather it is a leech upon society, sucking wealth out as an intermediary in the trading system. As long as there was plenty of Blood out there to leech out (resources), the bigger leeches got the bigger portions of the wealth. Now that there is not so much Blood, the biggest leeches are dying of starvation first.

The other dynamic you have to consider is how this culture of Greed affects the people who work in that industry, and the profligate spedning of the wealth that was accumulated through these means. To show your success, to benefit from it and revel in it, your goal was to have the biggest Penthouse, the most lines of Coke laid out on the mirror, the prettiest Models from Ford at your Parties. Real Players fly around in their own Jets, they don't ride coach with the Hoi Polloi, even First Class on a Commercial Airliner is beneath them. What do these folks really DO though? They mainly just hold positions of power which enable them to leech out the wealth of others systematically. It all comes from the earth in the end, and too many leeches sucking too much too fast depletes the host and so they ALL die in this system. Its fundamentally unsustainable, it HAD to fail, and so it is now. I knew it would, I just did not know when. Now I know.

For the people who bought into this system, even the apparatchiks who did so at the expense of their souls, being berated by their bosses and stressing out in 100 hour work weeks, they made a compact with the Devil, and they lost the bet. Do I feel the least bit sorry for any of them, the $100K a year trenchers just trying to make ends meet in NYC, where a one bedroom apt could cost you $2500 a month or more? No I do not. If you were so stupid as to buy this game, you now reap the results of that, its YOUR problem, not MY problem. Wannabee Pigmen are not a whole lot different than the Pigmen themselves, they serve also as the apparatchiks of Satan. They will Burn in Hell also.

Reverse Engineer

I pretty much agree with all you've said.

I was lucky enough to grow up living in various places around the world and went to international schools wherever I lived. Of the friends I had from the schools growing up, just about everyone is in New York or London. Evidently these two cities are the meccas for the twentysomething globalists. Quite a few are in IBanking. I've asked them what it is about IBanking that justifies the high salaries. I have yet to receive any kind of comprehensible answer, let alone a good one.

Based on my observations of others around my age, I think they are for the most part completely lost and misguided. The almighty dollar is all that matters to most of them, rather than actual quality of life, and few seem to even have the ability to assess their quality of life. This is a big part of the reason why NY and London, and the accompanying high salaries are such major draws for them. Nevermind the fact that most of those salaries will be eaten up meeting their essential needs.

This leads to an interesting point on human nature. We are, inherently, competitive critters. That competitiveness has become all the more important to get ahead recently, and has been glorified by media and every facet of western society. Taking the inability of twentysomethings to factor in quality of life, our inherent competitiveness, and western society's values into account, my belief is that most twentysomethings (and almost all my former classmates) would rather be competing against one another in a rat race than enjoying a truly high quality of life elsewhere devoid of that same type of competition. The desire to be doing a job that adds true value to the world is virtually non-existent amongst my age group, so not even worth talking about! I fear that as my age group become the dominant force, the world (or what's left of it) will become a MUCH uglier place.

Don't worry, they'll grow up, as every generation does.

This is why it is fundamentally important to reduce the powers of corporations. Individuals get sick of it and leave, but the monster finds new willing acolytes to replace them. Wisdom is replaced by greed. Corporations should be subservient to the rights of individuals. Human rights should never have been given to corporations.

[yesplease]

I don't particularly like the braying rugby playing public schoolboys who tend to go into finance, but that's not a reason to demonise them. We need to be clear who orchestrated this, it was the bankers who lobbied government (and the government themselves for allowing themselves to be corrupted). The minions were merely wannabe yuppies.

Bingo. Granted, the public schoolboys may not have dug ditches, broken concrete, hostled freight, and so on, but they also aren't the ones who probably walked away with billions, maybe trillions over the past few years, by gaming the system.

[ReverseEngineer]

Remember, it isn't people who happen to find a good way to make money who are at fault here, it's those who lobbied for deregulation and sat in the shadows, raking in the money.

I don't particularly like the braying rugby playing public schoolboys who tend to go into finance, but that's not a reason to demonise them. We need to be clear who orchestrated this, it was the bankers who lobbied government (and the government themselves for allowing themselves to be corrupted). The minions were merely wannabe yuppies.

+1

Sometimes good people succeed and make money, even in spite of themselves. I know many folks committed, working for, and sacrificing daily for social justice. And they are comfortable. It's not necessary to beat up on oneself for being a citizen of the richest country ever to exist.

I guess it would be so much easier if justice prevailed and life were black and white. But it is not.

I do not believe we are talking about $200K a year Social Workers.

In any event, the fact your typical $200K/year broker on Wall Street was just an apparatchik and not the real beneficiary of all the theft, just because Al Capone took most of the profits, does this absolve his Hit Men from guilt? Remember also, the Wannabee Pigmen of today are the real Pigmen of tomorrow, at least the ones that make it to the top of the Food Chain.

If you were a Wall Street Banker with a real Social Conscience who gave away all your spare dollars to the needy, pats on the back there, but that still doesn't absolve the guilt of working for a crooked and corrupt system, anymore than the average Nazi Soldier was innocent when employed by Hitler.

As things spin down here, all folks are left with the consequence of the choices they made in life. If you made the choice to be a Wannabee Pigman and Yuppie in NYC or London, you made a BAD choice. You'll live with the consequences of that, and those consequences no longer include dipping your wick into Ford Agency Models and stuffing their noses with Cocaine.

Reverse Engineer

[davep]

Remember, it isn't people who happen to find a good way to make money who are at fault here, it's those who lobbied for deregulation and sat in the shadows, raking in the money.

I don't particularly like the braying rugby playing public schoolboys who tend to go into finance, but that's not a reason to demonise them. We need to be clear who orchestrated this, it was the bankers who lobbied government (and the government themselves for allowing themselves to be corrupted). The minions were merely wannabe yuppies.

+1

Sometimes good people succeed and make money, even in spite of themselves. I know many folks committed, working for, and sacrificing daily for social justice. And they are comfortable. It's not necessary to beat up on oneself for being a citizen of the richest country ever to exist.

I guess it would be so much easier if justice prevailed and life were black and white. But it is not.

I do not believe we are talking about $200K a year Social Workers.

In any event, the fact your typical $200K/year broker on Wall Street was just an apparatchik and not the real beneficiary of all the theft, just because Al Capone took most of the profits, does this absolve his Hit Men from guilt? Remember also, the Wannabee Pigmen of today are the real Pigmen of tomorrow, at least the ones that make it to the top of the Food Chain.

If you were a Wall Street Banker with a real Social Conscience who gave away all your spare dollars to the needy, pats on the back there, but that still doesn't absolve the guilt of working for a crooked and corrupt system, anymore than the average Nazi Soldier was innocent when employed by Hitler.

As things spin down here, all folks are left with the consequence of the choices they made in life. If you made the choice to be a Wannabee Pigman and Yuppie in NYC or London, you made a BAD choice. You'll live with the consequences of that, and those consequences no longer include dipping your wick into Ford Agency Models and stuffing their noses with Cocaine.

Reverse Engineer

Come on, cut the hyperbole.

People see a job they can do that pays more, they go for it. There's no pigman disclaimer in the vacancy.

As I said, it's the power of corporations that needs to be tackled, and those with the power behind them.

I made a bad choice, and got out. However, I am probably a bit more aware than your average citizen. This doesn't make them demons. Be careful that you don't dissipate your energies in false battles.

[ReverseEngineer]

Be careful that you don't dissipate your energies in false battles.

If my energies are measured in the written word, they cannot be dissipated. Its a Cornucopia

Certainly, the top of the food chain Banksters are the MOST guilty, but there is plenty of guilt to go around here. I do also believe that the Punishment should fit the Crime and not all should receive the same Punishments, if you get my drift. LOL.

Regardelss of this, I don't look at the apparatchiks of this industry as misguided Preppies with no culpability. You know, George Bush was once a misguided Preppy. Misguided Preppies tend to grow up into Sociopathic Murderers. I went to college with these folks. They were all well on their way to Hell in their teens and 20s. A more shallow bunch I never met than the crowd from Phillips Andover. LOL.

When Judgement Day comes, all will be held Accountable. Nobody is truly innocent of course, but some are more guilty than others. Those who participated in the Orgy of Greed and Lust for Power and Wealth that was Wall Street are in fact the Most Guilty, and therefore in all Justice should suffer the worst Punishments. And so they will.

Reverse Engineer

[davep]

Be careful that you don't dissipate your energies in false battles.

If my energies are measured in the written word, they cannot be dissipated. Its a Cornucopia

Certainly, the top of the food chain Banksters are the MOST guilty, but there is plenty of guilt to go around here. I do also believe that the Punishment should fit the Crime and not all should receive the same Punishments, if you get my drift. LOL.

Regardelss of this, I don't look at the apparatchiks of this industry as misguided Preppies with no culpability. You know, George Bush was once a misguided Preppy. Misguided Preppies tend to grow up into Sociopathic Murderers. I went to college with these folks. They were all well on their way to Hell in their teens and 20s. A more shallow bunch I never met than the crowd from Phillips Andover. LOL.

When Judgement Day comes, all will be held Accountable. Nobody is truly innocent of course, but some are more guilty than others. Those who participated in the Orgy of Greed and Lust for Power and Wealth that was Wall Street are in fact the Most Guilty, and therefore in all Justice should suffer the worst Punishments. And so they will.

Reverse Engineer

Hmmm, you appear to be talking of divine punishment. I'd leave that to God, as I'm not presumptuous enough to assume that mantle.

However, we also need to deal with the reality here in the Garden of Earthly Delights. Maybe we can set the bar a wee bit lower. Otherwise we end in a cycle of recriminations that serves no purpose but terror.

[phaster]

Interesting thread, but just thought I'd point out that its not only NYC finance gold diggers who are lamenting their awful quandry! I'd also suggest that other social/economic groups are also going to have a rude lifestyle awakening, for example:

the real housewives of orange county

http://www.vh1.com/shows/various "reality" shows on VH1

Various professional sports players

people hoping to get rich flipping real estate

rap and various rock stars

etc.

[ReverseEngineer]

Hmmm, you appear to be talking of divine punishment. I'd leave that to God, as I'm not presumptuous enough to assume that mantle.

I'm sure God will do a fine job in the Hereafter. It is up to people though to make the Judgements and do the job of punishing the guilty in the Here and Now. Or do you feel the Banksters shoudl walk off scott free and we should leave the retribution to God? If you do not feel that way, then how do you go about dispensing Justice? Or Vengeance, or Retribution, call it what you will.

Reverse Engineer