My Time at Lehman

I usually don't call for increased salaries for government workers, but the people regulating Wall Street probably need to be making near-mid-six-figure salaries. Otherwise the ones who are good at their job will just get hired away by Wall Street.

https://addepar.com/technology/

Looks like graph theory to analyze investments as a set of relationships, rather than bar charts just showing aggregate stats.

Wall Street, in its current form, is a poison for America.

"I was later told that of my class of 1400 graduates from Yale, forty percent took jobs in finance."

Of course when he says finance, it means Wall Street banks.

I strongly believe Wall Street is the reason for the continuing decline of American industry and America itself. First reason is causing a massive brain drain out of other American industries by offering such ridiculous salaries for NEW hires. The second reason is exporting jobs (and intangible knowhow) for better margin/profit, which is really caused by top execs who want a bigger bonus check, which in turn is encouraged by Wall Street/stocks.

Think about it, you have to agree all those 560 (probably top tier at Yale) Yale graduates are BRILLIANT people. Yes some probably got in because of family connection etc, but most are brilliant and hard working. These are the kind of people who would've risen above others in their given field and eventually lead others to greatness. Their talent (however inexperienced initially) really has no boundary. But of course following a non-banking career path would mean actually working for years WITHOUT easily making 0.25 million bucks a year. And of course in non-banking industry you may never get to a position of making 0.25 million bucks a year ever in your working life. So the choice is a really EASY one for the graduates. And once they start down the career path, it's incredibly hard to get out. What will you do? You have no other real skill and you are used to a 0.25 million dollar lifestyle.

So what does this vicious cycle translate into?

1. Other American industries (or career fields) don't get the best talent available in the nation. They get the second best. Meanwhile other nations like China, S Korea, Japan etc are in a different situation. They don't have a banking system like Wall Street. Their banking systems aren't as powerful as Wall Street and hence don't offer such out of proportion compensation, for NEW hires. So their top graduates really don't have a choice BUT go work in a non-banking industry. Sure they would be bitter for not making 0.25 million bucks a year but their talent contributes concretely to their industry, create jobs, and keep their tax receipts rolling, which in turn help fund creating better education and infrastructure.

2. Wall Street is sending jobs abroad to fatten its bonus checks, while giving out some crumbs to some execs of other non-bank industries. As long as numbers look good, top execs at companies get fat checks, so they make incredibly stupid decisions that are bad for the company long term. But what do they care when they get 10 million when leaving the position. And all of this is shaped/encouraged by the Wall Street, who need cooperating ceos to make the wheels of Wall Street turn, printing out money for the top execs of Wall Street and their new hires.

I'm sure people in Wall Street are patriots. In cynical mode, why wouldn't they be? America is capitalism and in capitalism people with money are the kings. In non-cynical mode, I believe they are really patriotic. But they have to know, they are slowly strangling the life out of American industries, and America itself.

One solution I can think of is limiting the compensation of NEW hires of Wall Street. Make them work for compensation similar to maybe new doctors or lawyers from top law schools. Only once they are promoted after a few years, should be be allowed 0.25 million dollar salary. Maybe this will force some graduates think twice about jumping into Wall Street.

Now you ask why in heck would Wall Street leaders limit themselves? Well my warning is, at this rate, Wall Street itself will have to move to Shanghai or Singapore. You are being stupid if China will just stop at taking over non-banking industries. They want to be the central place for exchanging money on the planet too. Who wouldn't be? So unless the leaders of Wall Street aren't too keen about moving their HQ and homes to China, they better rethink their hiring practice.

Oh btw, China is full of Chinese (duh) bankers who would LOVE to take over the role of current Wall Street kings.

The statement was that "We like the idea of letting everyone transact freely, but we are uncomfortable with the "winner take all" implication of that policy"

But this is not true. We are not uncomfortable with free transactions resulting in winning - we are uncomfortable with "free" being the state of the system whereby the winner is able to do so because there is no oversight over the WAY in which these winnings are achieved.

namely, that one side of the transaction is exploiting their position of data/information superiority for their benefit and as a result, those who are under the delusion that they have a chance of making out well in the transaction suffer the reality of being the victim of having less data/information/sophistication.

We all want "FREE" transactions - but we want them on a level playing field.

THe fact is that there is no level playing field when it comes to the pinnacle of the monetary system.

The system is DESIGNED to not be in anyone's favor but wall street.

Further, they have worked very very hard at tremendous expense to ensure that the regulatory system, bodies and laws are all skewed in their favor!

Ignorance has so badly corrupted the minds of the world that even the understanding of the term Free is lost on most.

There can be an hour long rant on how exactly unfree every one truly is due to debt-slavery.