Here’s JPMorgan’s latest brilliant propaganda video, which you can watch here. A walkthrough:

The video lets you know right from the start that “Elena is participating in JPMorgan’s Investment Bank 2007 Global Training Program.” You know Elena is still in training because she is still smiling. Elena is shown looking at slides, one of which has the heading “About our culture” and a subheading “PLAY” (and a disclaimer “may not be an actual slide”). Of course, that section of the training presentation is empty, and the video quickly moves on.

Some more text flashes on the screen - “Employees receive rigorous technical training and learn about JPMorgan’s culture,” as demonstrated by a still of a bunch of people taking out books from JPMorgan bags (the extreme biodiversity in the firm represented by the fact that one of them is bald), then a still of a blood orgy in the TMT group.

Elena complains that you learn about a bunch of different asset classes that have nothing to do with your future job, and that it’s difficult to get to know anyone because JPMorgan is always switching the seat assignments in the room.

Elena laments that it was also difficult to get to know anyone at the Outward Bound training offsite, because everyone had to climb these stupid ropes and row down a body of water with large blocks of wood.

Judging by what you just saw, JPMorgan admits that it has a shitty training program, but promises that by the time you sign up, it will be markedly better. That’s why the firm is proud to state that Vault voted JPMorgan the best training program out of all Investment & Commercial Banks for 2008. In the future, JPMorgan will be better. It swears.

Always one to top itself, JPMorgan saved the best for last. The last shot of the video is a black screen with an arrow pointing to the right and the phrase “This is where you need to be.” By “this,” JPMorgan either means “in total hopeless and all-encompassing darkness,” or, slightly to the right at UBS at 299 Park Ave.

Inside JPMorgan’s Global Training Program [Bankers Ball]

If you didn’t make it outside this weekend, you’re either an agoraphobic or an I-banker. The latest farewell email making the rounds comes from an associate (we think, unless analysts now make staffing requests) at UBS, in the Healthcare Group. The individual staffed himself on an important deal in the personal managed care sector, and just walked out, but not before leaving this earnest expression of intent, with the subject “Sorry everyone”:

I’m leaving the bank now.

I’m not made to do this. If I put my mind to something as much as I do here to mindless text editing, copy and pasting, and getting yelled at for stuff other people can’t/won’t/don’t do, I would be much better off. It’s 6:43 a.m. on a Sunday, and I have at least 14 more hours of work to do today that will not be fulfilling, useful, appreciated, recognized, or paid for.

Sorry this is last minute, but it’s just not worth doing more

My blackberry is on my desk

Apparently that failed staffing request was fatal (no, not as in I’m going to kill myself, hehe, I’m just going to go enjoy life). There is no happiness here.

I took all my personal stuff. No one needs to contact me for anything (except for a drink for those of you with my personal number). I will only be at my New York address a few days longer.

Good luck y’all,

Just walk away. Leave town. Simplify. It’s easier than you think.

(all that being said we’re trying to determine if this is real, as there are certain brokers of fake farewells that start chains like this - any UBS Healthcare people want to confirm? tips at dealbreaker dot com)

Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE) drops the firebomb on its most recent ad campaign, from Reuters:

The ads for Bell Canada’s Solo discount service showed a young woman decked out in flashy punk rock attire, with a button that reads “Belsen was a gas” — the controversial title of a song by the Sex Pistols, and a reference to Nazi Germany’s Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

“It was inadvertent,” Bell Canada spokesman Mark Langton said on Friday, noting that the dozen ads were taken down as soon as the company realized its mistake. “Obviously, we would never depict such an offensive slogan in our advertising.”

The ad offended Jews (and Sex Pistols fans) taking public transport in Vancouver and Toronto.

Holocaust song title has firm squirming [Reuters]

In other New York Times gold this weekend (we know, #1 and #3 on the New York Times top-10, but both stories are especially cringe-worthy), the paper is gearing up for the 50th anniversary of the publishing of Atlas Shrugged. Guess what? There are some business people who think Atlas Shrugged qualifies as a real book, or something more than popular fiction.

Could an article for once stick a fork in Rand? A lot of books are popular. We’re sorry, but if Atlas Shrugged (or objectivism) is serious philosophy, then The Da Vinci Code is serious theology.

There’s no shame into admitting you read Atlas Shrugged in high school and got a bit of an over-ambitious upper-middle-class hard-on for your world conquering prospects. But it’s a phase you grow out of. Then again, some people still dress as elves (we live for LARP), some have a copy of Atlas Shrugged in their corner offices. A few years later and most people who grew up in bubbles (suburbanites) can laugh while admitting that they skipped the insufferable 200 page John Galt speech (in the same way you can laugh at how you thought your “Rage Against the Machine” albums were capturing your upper-middle-class teen angst).

It certainly takes that very misplaced “Big Hitter” hubris to find Rand’s work a viable replacement for Cialis, and it glorifies the denial of any real social responsibility or civic duty, so it’s no surprise that Rand’s work is popular in the corporate sector (also it takes an incredibly high I-banking analyst threshold for pain to suffer through the aforementioned speech).

There’s no shame in admitting a past affection. A lot of people got Nietzsche wrong (batty people in coffee shops, the Nazis), but it amazes us that people still find “inspiration” in Rand’s silly one-dimensional characters. Scratch that, they don’t. A few rich people, some people in neocon think tanks and Alan Greenspan (pictured, and yes, that pretty much sums up the Wall Street Journal editorial page) don’t constitute much of a consensus, despite the efforts of institutes devoted to spread Rand’s work and act eerily mystical about the batty trainwreck of an individual that was Ayn herself.

Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism [New York Times]

The New York Times, or one really “plugged-in” features editor, realized over the weekend that some people in business aren’t going to business school. This is before the Gray Lady realizes (in maybe two years?) that as the market turns, more people are going to try to go to business school.

At least 28-year old Gabriel Hammond, who founded Alerian Capital, thinks that business school is bogus, and for a New York Times feature, that’s all it takes. Despite the fact that we probably agree with him, we’re thinking the odds are that Alerian didn’t have a wonderful August (anyone know any numbers on these guys? – send to tips at dealbreaker dot com), leaving Hammond with barely enough money to take the GMAT (that story will run in December).

Hammond thinks business school is so ridiculous that he hires people straight out of it, for reasons other than the fact that those people went to B-school. Take that, silly institution!

Hammond made his initial thousands from his Johns Hopkins dorm room betting on Caterpillar (wishing that Baltimore would be torn down and reconstructed into a fun, livable city). G-Hamm then went to Goldman to become more awesome, and by more awesome we need to say no more than a 2005 Trader Monthly top 30 trader under 30, as judged by nothing in particular. Hammond left Goldman to “raise” $5 million (a move that screams an obvious subtext that the New York Times is willfully glossing over, like the fact that it was probably family or family friend money) to start a “hedge fund.” Now the fund manages $300 million and Gabriel makes “seven figure payouts.”

Others, according to inside sources at the New York Times, get promoted straight to Associate without going to B-school, including people dressed in business formal looking earnestly (yet cautiously, knowing the burden of being so uniquely and massively successful) into a blurred cityscape at Citi.

Others, actually attending B-school and now wanting to kill themselves, were forced to attend by PE firms.

Hedge Funds and Private Equity Alter Career Calculus [New York Times]

The Canadian dollar (loonie) rose to a 30-year high yesterday, closing at 96.83 cents to the U.S. dollar. Today, the loonie lost a little of its luster, down slightly at 96.66 cents.

The last time the loonie was riding this high was in February 1977, or the last time moving to Canada seemed like such a positive life-choice.

Loonie rides to new 30-year high [Canoe Money via Fark]

Malcolm Perry is suing Dresdner for $20 million, charging that the bank discriminated against his non-Germanic heritage. Perry, an Australian working in England, lost his job after Dresdner restructured its London office last year.

Actively involved in restructuring talks, Perry was surprised to hear from a more connected colleague (pictured) that “[Dresdner management] wants to turn it back to a German bank.”

One contentious point of the lawsuit is that Perry admits to leaving a restructuring meeting due to a hangover, at which point a series of unplanned discussions took place, including what to do with Perry’s drunk arse.

After the restructuring, Perry was canned, and six of the nine capital markets division managers were German (the remaining three just loved Hasselhoff, spoke German).

Dresdner insists that it is not trying to systematically eliminate non-Germans from its ranks, or the ranks of mankind.

In other news French banks are already surrendering their capital to Dresdner.

City banker not ‘German enough’ [BBC]

Nigerian banks reportedly use attractive women (and most likely a few additional services they may or may not provide) to “persuade” customers to open accounts. Some, including Nigerian Senate President David Mark, think that this practice isn’t in the true spirit of retail banking, which is pretty much the least sexy thing on the planet. Mark is calling for a ban of the practice.

The Nigerian central bank ordered the consolidation of the country’s banking sector in 2005, reducing the number of banks from 89 to 25. Part of the rationale for consolidation was that the banks would become “more efficient” and not have to use women to attract new business. Despite relative success on the Lagos stock market, Nigerian banks are in large part propped up by government agency deposits and do little retail business. That’s where the babes come in…

Hey, big boy! Any interest? [Reuters]

It’s a pretty appealing pitch, especially when made by the Kravis & Schwarzman traveling comedy deal-team. It is amazing that Cadbury rejected the offer, especially when all it had to do was take on a high level of risk and create a less than optimal situation for shareholders.

The setup - Blackstone, KKR and Lion Capital offered to buy Cadbury for $13-$14 billion, but wanted Cadbury to finance up to $7 billion of the deal.

The punchline - involved Kravis drinking a ton of Dr. Pepper and burping every time Schwarzman tried to talk about IPO’ing before the market turned. It was reported that Cadbury’s discounted beverage unit smirked, but the company ultimately rejected the offer.

Cadbury is thinking about demerging rather than selling or floating considering the current PE market, and still thinks it’s worth a good $14 billion or so (7 billion pounds). In the early summer, competing PE consortia were vying for Cadburys with a valuation closer to $16 billion.

Cadbury rejects drinks bid due to financing: sources [Reuters]

MTV turns to Axe body spray to prevent stinky programming [Wall Street Journal]

We may be less employed than we think, thanks to some statistical bumps provided by NILFS (Not In Labor Force) [Seeking Alpha]

The World Series of Video games is canceled due to lack of funding - people who watch people play video games proclaimed victors of World Series of Laziness [Gamasutra via Fark]

Sign of the apocalypse - Valleywag only did one post on facebook today (usual tally = 1/3rd of all posts)… at least it’s novel… oh right, we did it two days ago… at least they linked to us… oh right, they didn’t [ValleyWag via DealBreaker]

Read and pretend to know how the EU is getting along these days [London Review of Books]

WallStrip apparently thinks those Coors Light commercials are funny, and watches tennis: