Now that we’ve got our own GoogTube frustrations out there, we can take a deep breath and remember that the last time we started to feel this way we were about two years from the bursting of the tech bubble. We were living in Philadelphia and conspiring with business students on ways to make money from selling “tiny little classified ads” more efficiently. We got out of school and moved to New York just in time to watch it all come crashing down around us. Suddenly, it didn’t seem as costly not to be sorting mail at the Next Big Thing.
Are we back there again? The other night we had a young woman over at our apartment to watch some movies. She’s a film-maker. The type who makes avant-garde shorts that get shown in the big festivals but have never made much money. More importantly, she brought over two nice bottles of wine.
Somewhere into the second bottle she turns to us and mentions she’s taking a class at the New School.
“It’s my first class that is not on film, post-modern fiction or women’s history,” she says. “I’m taking a finance class. I’m really learning a lot. It’s like economics. I keep thinking, ‘Wow. When did this stuff get invented?’”
Apparently this is a very funny story to her creative friends because they are all doing the same thing. Taking finance classes. Looking to get involved in the markets.
We quickly took out our notebook and wrote down the date. February 6th, 2007. That’s officially the day we witnessed the modern equivalent of the shoe-shine boy asking Joe Kennedy for stock tips. When avant-garde filmmakers want to be bankers, it might be time to ring the bell people.
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Astute and scary. Thanks Carney.
That makes it so much easier to study for the &^$%&^ CFA.
you just did a post on a girl coming to your apartment and telling you she’s taking a finance class….wall street gossip indeed…
What are you Carney, the fucking Queen of England? Stop referring to yourself as “We.”
did her bell get rung?
Welcome back Carney. what’s your take on Lear accepting Ichan’s bid..$4 below current price. Good luck to whoever is doing the fairness on that ish
They’re going to rely on the go-shop provision for fairness. As requested, see my next post!
Oh, and Anonymous, I know, I know. Sometimes the house style of “we” is a bit awkward but it’s the way we do things around here. Get used to it.
Carney, you should have encouraged her. I think the fact she’s looking to get into the market is a good sign. She’s fresh meat. Big fish need smaller fish to survive. We should encourage the small fish: “Jump in, the water’s fine”.
I wonder how this is different from the CFO looking types we see reading Don Delillo in Battery Park. If they read Don Delillo, I feel like the avant-garde film maker can learn how to read a balance sheet. I mean I don’t know, just asking.
The difference, at least to my mind, fairest, is that reading DeLillo is (supposed to be) enjoyable and edifying in itself. Reading a balance sheet is mind-numbing and only worth doing because it can earn you money.
Since when was DeLillo hard to read (or a balance sheet for that matter, I guess)? It’s easier than Pynchon, harder than…um…Rowling (or seriously, Vonnegut, although it’s the effortlessness of K.V.’s writing that makes it enjoyable).