college

As you may have heard, over the last several months, various college newspapers have run opinion pieces by students lamenting the fact that many of their peers take jobs on Wall Street following graduation, where their talents are wasted. Dartmouth kicked things off in August, with others following in suit, particularly at Ivy League universities, from which the financial industry heavily recruits. Not to be left out of the fun, Duke University’s Chronicle Editorial Board today bemoaned the Duke “factory” which “inputs smart and well-intentioned kids, and churns out instruments for the Wall Street machine.” Continue reading »

Time was, landing an offer from an investment bank in the fall of one’s senior was something to be proud of. Secured employment at Goldman/JPMorgan/Lehman Brothers et al for the following year was something you didn’t try to hide and you’d happily join Facebook groups started around the common cause of spending one’s signing bonus on kegs and in some cases, perhaps used it as a way of facilitating the bedding of chicks. Back then, a simple “I need to find a place before my job at [insert firm of choice here] starts” more than lubricated the situation in your favor and the notion of not whipping it out in social situations, with members of the opposite sex and otherwise, would’ve sounded crazy. Now? You keep that shit under wraps. Continue reading »

Maybe, you thought, Bernie Madoff wouldn’t like prison. Maybe, you thought, after a life of luxury, living in an 8X10 would cramp his style. Maybe, you thought, that he’d have trouble earning 14 cents an hour sweeping the floors, after spending several decades ‘earning’ millions making fake trades. Maybe, you thought, he wouldn’t take to an environment wherein taking your pants off means open season on your ass, after coming from a work environment where nobody blinked an eye when he regularly “dropped his trou in the office to ensure that the line of his shirt buttons was precisely vertical,” without the slightest threat of attack. Maybe, you thought, he’d be home sick. Maybe, you thought, he wouldn’t make any friends. Maybe, you thought, he wouldn’t get picked by any fraternities during rush. Well, you couldn’t be anymore wrong. Not only is Berns quickly adjusting and joining all sorts of groups, but he’s having the time of his life. Continue reading »

“Our plans [to recruit] are consistent with last year,” said Kristen Williams, head of Bank of America’s global banking and markets campus recruiting team. “We have our target school list in the U.S. and globally. We’re not in a 2009 situation.” [FINS]

The Financial Services Roundtable has had to sit Congress down a few times and explain things to them, and they’ve been extraordinarily patient. FSR president Steve Bartlett has spent many hours walking the halls of Congress in his ostrich skin boots (really). But he’s a busy guy and he just can’t keep homeschooling the Congress kids any more, who we assume are still struggling with the difference between assets and liabilities. So he’s sending them off to college for some formal schooling:
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“Philosophy, sociology and liberal arts agendas will no longer suffice.” Continue reading »

As previously mentioned, one of the unforeseen consequences of the Galleon insider trading bust was credibility taking a hit. Specifically that of the individuals who’d told their friends and colleagues that Danielle Chiesi was a dime piece, and who were slightly dismayed to see the picture of her from a Bridget Nielsen (Flavor Flav Years) look-a-like contest. Luckily, they were saved when Bloomberg reported Danielle Chiesi was in fact named Miss Southern Tier Teenager in 1981, with the photo of DC in a tiara following shortly thereafter to prove it. Today another pic has emerged, from the sorority files.

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