Photo reports coming in of the lines snaking around ballroom hallways at financial career fairs are looking like bread lines during the great D.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/jobs/28bankers.html?ref=business Another way to make lots of money. See, Wall Street guys in their 30's are smart and they know how to roll with the punches. It is the weenies in their 20's who just seem to be completely lost.
Makes me feel better about learning how to trade a couple of years ago. Most people laughed, thought it was useless and more of a gambling thing. Now I feel MUCH better about my economic situation, because I can take money and grow it, unlike many of my peers. A sad situation, I feel everyone should at least learn how their money is being put to use in the markets. They SHOULD learn how to make the markets work for them...I feel this is where we're headed, a fend for yourself society. Only time will tell. -troll
eventually the market will peg parasitic activity to its real value. 90% of these people are paper pushers who provide no real value.
Actually, I was thinking this is the best time to start one's degree in finance or go onto MBA. It is easy to make money in a Bull market, the "good" will find a way to make money in a bad market and in four years from now the World will be near a turn around, the experience of learning about bad phases of economy will make them a better risk taker.
maybe. but in four years the hot money will be elsewhere not in tech or hedgefunds. maybe it can be biotech. a new grad making $120,000 straight out of college. then we'll see mbas run back to school to get biotech degrees and major in 'quantitative bio engineering'
This downturn unlike other recessions is different in that there has been a fundamental shift in the basis of the economy. There is going to be a ways to go before we can say that the dust has settled and we know how things are going to be. Would it make sense to get an MBA? Maybe if you get into the top 10, but good luck trying to get in for the next couple of years. There is nothing like joining the ranks of the long term unemployed to make you unemployable and everyone knows that. 20-somethings and 30-somethings fired from their jobs, angry and desperate, are all cramming into those few precious slots. Pity the poor babies who graduated in the MBA class of 2006 and 2007 (at least you had the chance to pay off those student loans!); pray for the souls who had the luck to graduate in 2008 (think of it as karma); and keep the class of 2009 away from handguns. Without Wall Street, getting a big name MBA would not make sense. Bear Stearns is gone, Lehman is gone, Bank of America and Citi are both slicing off tens of thousands of jobs each, Goldman and Morgan are laying people off and all the rest are in some kind of trouble or other; hedge funds are trying to close down and private equity funds cannot poop out the crap they feasted on in the go-go years. What is an honest MBA going to do to make lots and lots of money?
http://blogs.wsj.com/laidoff/ The first one, "Saying Good-Bye to Banking", I respect because he is down to earth and recognizes reality. The rest are worth a read too. Some of you may snipe that this thread is vicious and ugly, but at least I did not go around saying to people that everything was going to be okay. The guys who hung around in New York and continued paying $2,500 in rent for a crummy one bed room or more if they were higher up and needed to play the whole show and respect gig would probably have pretty much run through their savings by now. That is money they could have used to start their own business, get into trading or just live on in a cheaper locale. Instead, because these schmucks listened to the false feel good propaganda, that precious capital got sucked away in the steel and concrete cash sponge that is New York City.
i don;t think their talents will be lost...maybe just redeployed. perhaps they'll become teachers, nurses, occupational therapists/physios,social workers....if they have the money to return to school. gyms are the first shut down in a recession. can't see yoga teachers doing too well, although they can always work at a vipassana retreat and volunteer for food and shelter.
It is very cruel to suggest to a MBA that he or she should do something socially useful like become a teacher or social worker. The whole point of getting a MBA is so that you can make a great deal of money and never have to do things like taking care of children or interacting with the poor. Almost all of these schmucks are going to keep looking and looking for that right finance job until they max out their credit cards. It is really the commitment to that yuppie dream which they cannot let go of. You can tell them to conserve their capital because there are things that they can do if they have some money saved up, but will they listen? The tedium of waiting for someone to call them for a job interview alone is enough to drive them to go out, do things and spend money they really do not have. It is like a situation where a man goes out and gets drunk because his marriage is not working out and then goes back home and trashes his wife because he is completely soused. All they need to do is take a step back and appraise the desperation of their situation to understand what they need to do. But read through the WSJ blog and you will find these people are still prisoners to MBA speak. It is sad, because as leaders, they were supposed to have a better grasp of reality.