• 17 Nov 2010 at 9:52 AM

Dick Parsons Explains Why You Can Be A F*ck Up On Wall Street And Still Find Work

By

Pretty simple, really: nobody else has the skills to destroy investment banks, investor capital, etc. You think any shmoe on the corner could do that? I think not. Just like the NFL.

“Have you ever noticed,” the chairman of Citigroup, Richard D. Parsons, asked The Observer Monday evening, “that in the NFL, or in the NBA, or in Major League Baseball, this guy was a failure at Cleveland, and then he becomes the coach in Houston? These guys just move around from one team to another. Why is that? Because there isn’t a very deep pool of skilled talent that exists. “And so, too, for a lot of financial stuff: Not everybody who’s walking up and down Fifth Avenue at noon is capable of running a derivatives book,” he went on, voice low, sitting in the 57th Street offices of the firm Providence Equity, where he’s a senior adviser. “It takes a certain amount of skill and knowledge to be in that business.”

Where Are They Now? [NYO]

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Comments (90)

Older Comments
  1. 1
    Posted by tits | November 17, 2010 at 3:04 PM

    He looks highly constipated and regal in that pic.

  2. 2
    Posted by Anonymous | November 17, 2010 at 3:06 PM

    Thanks, professor!

  3. 3
    Posted by Talkingaboutsuck | November 17, 2010 at 3:09 PM

    Does that mean UBS is like the Buffalo Bills?

  4. 4
    Posted by Hamilton | November 17, 2010 at 3:09 PM

    THIS dick has skill and knowledge

    - Dick Parsons

  5. 5
    Posted by Guest | November 17, 2010 at 3:12 PM

    ooo yes! fun game. UBS = bills.

    cowboys = ?

    eli manning = ?

    rex ryan = ?

    michael vick = ?

    chick who gave the lapdance at the cowboys game = ?

  6. 6
    Posted by Anonymous | November 17, 2010 at 3:12 PM

    Dick is right, it takes talent to blow up a fund.
    -B. Hunter

  7. 7
    Posted by BoMan | November 17, 2010 at 3:17 PM

    Traders don’t lose money; strategies do.

    -B. Collins
    Energymaster, NY

  8. 8
    Posted by Nevertakealoss | November 17, 2010 at 3:19 PM

    Don’t forget entire companies, too.

    Tom K
    Stadium, KS

  9. 9
    Posted by Anonymous | November 17, 2010 at 3:22 PM

    Morgan Stanley = Cowboys (once great, now struggling to matter)
    Frank Quattrone = Mike Vick

    boom done!

  10. 10
    Posted by Homosaurus | November 17, 2010 at 3:27 PM

    How’s that bastard child of his doing?

    Too soon?

  11. 11
    Posted by Dr. Rosenrose | November 17, 2010 at 3:44 PM

    Does anyone else see Caption Contest potential??

  12. 12
    Posted by Guest | November 17, 2010 at 3:50 PM

    michigan avenue: high probabilty

  13. 13
    Posted by Guest | November 17, 2010 at 3:50 PM

    What’s the Lions?

  14. 14
    Posted by CraigMichaels | November 17, 2010 at 4:02 PM

    Tom Brady = Bess Levin

  15. 15
    Posted by Bills_fan | November 17, 2010 at 4:04 PM

    UBS is moving to Canada after the Chairman dies?

  16. 16
    Posted by William | November 17, 2010 at 4:07 PM

    I am a huge fuck up, but you don’t see me working on wall street.

  17. 17
    Posted by I'mJustSayin' | November 17, 2010 at 4:09 PM

    Have you met my partner, Dr. Johnson?

  18. 18
    Posted by Anonymous | November 17, 2010 at 4:10 PM

    is Dick pointing to his Dick?

  19. 19
    Posted by tits | November 17, 2010 at 4:14 PM

    word!

  20. 20
    Posted by Pfluger the Barbarian | November 17, 2010 at 4:18 PM

    He’s right, of course, any f-up can work on Wall Street. There is no discipline there, and nobody is judged on their performance. No one ever gets fired, and most of these lazy scum just sit around counting the days to their fat pensions.

    - A. Stern

  21. 21
    Posted by Anonymous | November 17, 2010 at 4:31 PM

    So you can be a fuck-up, but you still need to know stuff? Where’s the cut-off? How much do I need to know? Or maybe it’s just who? Running out of money here in the unemployment line. I need answers!

  22. 22
    Posted by OTCB | November 17, 2010 at 4:36 PM

    California Municipal Employees RULE…..we do absolutely nothing for 300k for life.

  23. 23
    Posted by Gunslinger | November 17, 2010 at 4:37 PM

    Is he about to holster or draw?

  24. 24
    Posted by Glenn Beck | November 17, 2010 at 5:03 PM

    He’s throwing up the Lucky Sperm gang sign at exactly the same time he is talking about the closed society that is the lucky sperm club that runs Wall street and the Fed. Are you people paying attention to what’s going on.

  25. 25
    Posted by TGFD | November 17, 2010 at 5:14 PM

    Corporate boards and executive suites throughout America are infested with proven failures of the kind Mr. Parsons mentions, people who do some “Real” damage to the lives of a lot of people.

    Here in Delaware, a recent example is one R. Keith Elliott, a man with a thick resume, lots of experience, a good education, a nice suit, and a lifetime legacy of utter failure. He is a former CEO/Chairman of Hercules, Inc, and he literally ran that company into bankruptcy until it was taken over by Ashland Oil Co. in 2000, at which time he was fired.

    Elliot was also a board member of Wilmington Trust (WL) from 1997 until a month ago, when he resigned. He was chair of WL’s Audit Committee from 2005-2007, the period when WL committed suicide by exposing itself to many, large commercial real-estate loans that went sour, loans that are now responsible for the current collapse of WL, a bank that was founded by members of the duPont family more than a century ago. WL is now being swallowed by M & T Bank of Canada at a fire-sale price, and the futures of thousands of WL employees and retirees are in jeapordy.

    Elliot is still a director in several other companies; notably, he is the lead director of Checkpoint Systems, a New Jersey manufacturer and marketer of retail labeling systems.

    Another current WL director is one Louis Freeh, former federal judge and former failed Director of the FBI (Clinton appointee) who was fired by Pres. Bush in the late summer of 2001, after he had refused for months to authorize an investigation of several muslim students at an aviation school in WI or MN who “just wanted to learn how to fly big airplanes, not how to land or to take-off,” and who were later identified as terrorists who participated in 9-11. For months, the local FBI office had been begging Freeh for permission to investigate, but Freeh refused.

    Freeh was then hired by MBNA bank in Delaware as head of security and janitorial services, and he was let go when MBNA was absorbed by BAC in 2005. He now runs some kind of international terror security consulting business out of his house, less than a mile from TGFD’s trailer. I see him occasionally at the small, local post office; each time, I feel like punching his fucking lights out. He’s just a little fuck, and I think he’d be no match for TGFD, especially if I gave him a surprise punch to the face.

    The Guy from Delaware

  26. 26
    Posted by geicopiggy | November 17, 2010 at 5:16 PM

    no, please pull out the whiteboard and get two markers.

  27. 27
    Posted by Justgoogleit | November 17, 2010 at 5:19 PM

    Take a deep breath. M&T is headquartered in Buffalo, NY, not Canada.

  28. 28
    Posted by TGFD | November 17, 2010 at 5:28 PM

    Justgooglit…

    You’re right, but I do remember reading that M & T of Buffalo is owned by some Canadian outfit. Is that correct?

    The Guy from Delaware

  29. 29
    Posted by Justgoogleit | November 17, 2010 at 5:42 PM

    Allied Irish Bank owned a block of the stock and just sold it. Only Canadian connection I’m aware of is that RBC advised them on the purchase of Wilmington Trust

  30. 30
    Posted by indridcold | November 17, 2010 at 5:50 PM

    oh! oh! i took his “…the man down stairs…” preaching as a devil reference, you know since he was talking about wall street and everything. what the hell is he getting at then?

  31. 31
    Posted by killme | November 17, 2010 at 6:01 PM

    Yes. Please pull out the two whiteboard markers.

    –Ping Capital Analyst

  32. 32
    Posted by Anonymous | November 17, 2010 at 6:13 PM

    Dick should know the company his is chairman of was full of them *uck-ups

  33. 33
    Posted by kill yourself guy | November 17, 2010 at 6:46 PM

    no. kill yourself.

  34. 34
    Posted by TGFD | November 17, 2010 at 7:06 PM

    Kill Yourself Guy…

    What a dumbass name you have.

    The Guy from Delaware

  35. 35
    Posted by Jack | November 17, 2010 at 7:54 PM

    Dick Parsons = Wade Phillips

  36. 36
    Posted by Anonymous | November 17, 2010 at 9:32 PM

    Bear Stearns.

  37. 37
    Posted by Guest | November 17, 2010 at 10:01 PM

    What happened to that post about Barclay’s layoffs earlier today?

  38. 38
    Posted by guest | November 17, 2010 at 10:52 PM

    This is the best example ever of the coal calling the kettle black

  39. 39
    Posted by just_looking | November 18, 2010 at 1:51 AM

    Do IT! Cold cock that MF but do it in the parking lot, not in a federal building.

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