How Bankers Live With Themselves

OrbitalDawn

OrbitalDawn

Ulysses Everett McGill
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One man conducted hundreds of interviews to understand the motivation and morality of those in the finance industry.

How can bankers live with themselves after the destruction wrought by their industry? That’s in part what the Dutch journalist Joris Luyendijk sets out to uncover in his new book, Among the Bankers: A Journey Into the Heart of Finance, which was published overseas last year under the title Swimming with Sharks. The book attempts to lay bare not the technical workings of a very opaque industry, but the emotional and moral considerations of those who operate within it.

Luyendijk, a reporter at The Guardian who has a background in anthropology, poses that question of conscience over and over again. To answer it, he conducted hundreds of interviews with people who work in the City, London’s version of Wall Street.

Early on, Luyendijk finds out that despite an unwritten code of silence, bankers are eager to talk about their jobs once promised anonymity. They tell him candid tales of the long hours, the competitive culture, the money, the stress. One woman said of her colleague, “I sit next to this girl who has a son whom she never sees. She gets in early, goes out very late, and the nanny sits at home.” Some are desperate to brag to Luyendijk about their clients or their best deal; others want to share how bad they feel, how uncomfortable they are with the depiction of their work. “Banking today is like playing Russian roulette with someone else’s head,” one banker said.
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Rest in link.
 
Before I comment, I did not read the whole article BUT:

I work for a vehicle finance bank so I could consider myself a banker. I think the bankers they refer to in this article are probably stock traders or bank executives. Certainly 95% bankers aren't the fat cat, ruthless, no morality types. I look at payslips all day long to determine if people can afford finance and let me tell you, I have seen some disgustingly fat pay checks and they didn't come from any banker types.

The banker that you talk to at a Standard Bank or the guy that arranges your bond or car finance is probably earning a mediocre salary at best...

Just my 2 cents...
 
SigmaZ said:
Before I comment, I did not read the whole article BUT:

I work for a vehicle finance bank so I could consider myself a banker. I think the bankers they refer to in this article are probably stock traders or bank executives. Certainly 95% bankers aren't the fat cat, ruthless, no morality types. I look at payslips all day long to determine if people can afford finance and let me tell you, I have seen some disgustingly fat pay checks and they didn't come from any banker types.
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I think bankers in this context would be Investment bankers -bond and equity traders etc. However even non-investment bankers in London and New York would fit the bill of massive salaries and lack of social life described by the article.
 
Interesting topic -

Three kinds of people, hunters farmers and house wives.

Hunters - morally defunct - just chase the win at all and any cost.
Farmers - relationship builders, have feelings
House wives - paper pushers, do the job dont need to see the consequences and too far removed to have a relationship with the client or the deal that was struck.

Bankers ..... maybe the shareholders chase the cash and the board directors are the ruthless ones - its in their nature - its their job?
 
SigmaZ said:
Before I comment, I did not read the whole article BUT:

I work for a vehicle finance bank so I could consider myself a banker. I think the bankers they refer to in this article are probably stock traders or bank executives. Certainly 95% bankers aren't the fat cat, ruthless, no morality types. I look at payslips all day long to determine if people can afford finance and let me tell you, I have seen some disgustingly fat pay checks and they didn't come from any banker types.

The banker that you talk to at a Standard Bank or the guy that arranges your bond or car finance is probably earning a mediocre salary at best...

Just my 2 cents...
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The truth has no place in the sphere of the socialist. Don't you know that anyone who works with or has money is tainted by that Capatilist evil?
 
If anyone wants an idea of the sort of the excesses of investment bankers and the kind of things they get up to then I would recommend a few of Michael Lewis' books - specifically Liar's Poker, The Big Short and Flash boys. The excess of Liar's poker is perhaps less relevant as it is set in the 80's but the other two show just how far Investment banks are willing to go to screw over the "fool" in any deal.
 
TEXTILE GUY said:
Interesting topic -

Three kinds of people, hunters farmers and house wives.

Hunters - morally defunct - just chase the win at all and any cost.
Farmers - relationship builders, have feelings
House wives - paper pushers, do the job dont need to see the consequences and too far removed to have a relationship with the client or the deal that was struck.

Bankers ..... maybe the shareholders chase the cash and the board directors are the ruthless ones - its in their nature - its their job?
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Not sure if answering questions or proposing additional questions...
 
the more appropriate label would be banksters, to distinguish someone in the banking industry that maximizes profits through cheating, scheming, racketeering from someone who just happens to work in the banking industry with decent enough morals
 
SigmaZ said:
Before I comment, I did not read the whole article BUT:

I work for a vehicle finance bank so I could consider myself a banker. I think the bankers they refer to in this article are probably stock traders or bank executives. Certainly 95% bankers aren't the fat cat, ruthless, no morality types. I look at payslips all day long to determine if people can afford finance and let me tell you, I have seen some disgustingly fat pay checks and they didn't come from any banker types.

The banker that you talk to at a Standard Bank or the guy that arranges your bond or car finance is probably earning a mediocre salary at best...

Just my 2 cents...
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Lol, ya.

It was just today I was ranting about the 1% in another thread and the "they lent you the money for your house and car" thing was thrown in my face.

Like the fsckers at FNB are going to get to the 1% by making money off loans to me... :crylaugh:
 
Any article that talks about the evils of banking and finance, etc. are undoubtedly full of sh*t. The terms are just way to broad for any one brush to paint - to try do so is inherently disingenuous. Even narrowing it down to investment banker or trader is far too broad. I do agree that at this scope, there is a strong likelihood that people earn more and work harder and longer, but being morally bankrupt because of one's portfolio allocations, hedging strategies or how one solves a stochastic differential equation - come on.

There are actually only a tiny Trump sized handful of positions that could even put someone in a position where ethics violations could be profitable, and even then, apart from the obvious negative of becoming a criminal, exploiting such an opportunity is usually not worth the risk of being caught, and the upside is usually marginal anyway, since to even be in such a position in the first place one has to be fairly successful already.

Most of the reputation comes from a few high profile criminals in the industry, the high salaries, and of course the 2008 meltdown (which had very little to do with the vast majority of bank/finance employees). There's also a poor understanding of the term "bonus" in the industry - it's part of each employee's basic income, not something you get for doing a good job, but more something that gets taken away for doing a bad job, or increased for doing an outstanding job. People get riled up when the market goes down and the bank staff get bonuses - what the market does has very little relation to how well a given employee actually did their job.
 
cguy said:
Any article that talks about the evils of banking and finance, etc. are undoubtedly full of sh*t. The terms are just way to broad for any one brush to paint - to try do so is inherently disingenuous. Even narrowing it down to investment banker or trader is far too broad. I do agree that at this scope, there is a strong likelihood that people earn more and work harder and longer, but being morally bankrupt because of one's portfolio allocations, hedging strategies or how one solves a stochastic differential equation - come on.

There are actually only a tiny Trump sized handful of positions that could even put someone in a position where ethics violations could be profitable, and even then, apart from the obvious negative of becoming a criminal, exploiting such an opportunity is usually not worth the risk of being caught, and the upside is usually marginal anyway, since to even be in such a position in the first place one has to be fairly successful already.

Most of the reputation comes from a few high profile criminals in the industry, the high salaries, and of course the 2008 meltdown (which had very little to do with the vast majority of bank/finance employees). There's also a poor understanding of the term "bonus" in the industry - it's part of each employee's basic income, not something you get for doing a good job, but more something that gets taken away for doing a bad job, or increased for doing an outstanding job. People get riled up when the market goes down and the bank staff get bonuses - what the market does has very little relation to how well a given employee actually did their job.
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Agree with most of this, cguy. Just on the bolded bit...there wasn't much of a penalty (in the US / UK at least) for what was obviously deceitful behaviour leading up to 2008. The packaging of risky home loans into CDO's that were then rated AAA and marketed to investors happened on a large scale (I wanted to say massive but that word's got connotations nowadays :)). If an industry can have that kind of practice taking place and people feeling comfortable enough to do it often enough to cause the scale of damage we saw, then I'd say that industry has a problem. Not a tiny handful of people problem...a significant problem.
 
cguy said:
Any article that talks about the evils of banking and finance, etc. are undoubtedly full of sh*t. The terms are just way to broad for any one brush to paint - to try do so is inherently disingenuous. Even narrowing it down to investment banker or trader is far too broad. I do agree that at this scope, there is a strong likelihood that people earn more and work harder and longer, but being morally bankrupt because of one's portfolio allocations, hedging strategies or how one solves a stochastic differential equation - come on.

There are actually only a tiny Trump sized handful of positions that could even put someone in a position where ethics violations could be profitable, and even then, apart from the obvious negative of becoming a criminal, exploiting such an opportunity is usually not worth the risk of being caught, and the upside is usually marginal anyway, since to even be in such a position in the first place one has to be fairly successful already.

Most of the reputation comes from a few high profile criminals in the industry, the high salaries, and of course the 2008 meltdown (which had very little to do with the vast majority of bank/finance employees). There's also a poor understanding of the term "bonus" in the industry - it's part of each employee's basic income, not something you get for doing a good job, but more something that gets taken away for doing a bad job, or increased for doing an outstanding job. People get riled up when the market goes down and the bank staff get bonuses - what the market does has very little relation to how well a given employee actually did their job.
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If the article is overbroad with its sentiments, then the wide brush stokes of your post are doubly so.
 
Neoprod said:
Agree with most of this, cguy. Just on the bolded bit...there wasn't much of a penalty (in the US / UK at least) for what was obviously deceitful behaviour leading up to 2008. The packaging of risky home loans into CDO's that were then rated AAA and marketed to investors happened on a large scale (I wanted to say massive but that word's got connotations nowadays :)). If an industry can have that kind of practice taking place and people feeling comfortable enough to do it often enough to cause the scale of damage we saw, then I'd say that industry has a problem. Not a tiny handful of people problem...a significant problem.
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There were only very few people that were involved with actually hiding the riskiness of the CDO's. The rating agencies most certainly shouldn't have rated them as AAA, and the handful of people that pushed the rating agencies (and those that accepted it at the ratings organization). The rest of the world assumed that if it was a AAA rated investment, then it met a certain risk profile.

I had someone try sell me CDO's in 2007. He pitched it as "basically like CDs, but not FDIC insured and can 'theoretically' go down." (CD is the US name for a fixed deposit). I'm under no illusion that he knew any more about it than a cigarette salesmen knew about their product in the '40s - I don't blame him - it is far beyond the scope of his job to understand these things - which is why there are rating agencies in the first place.
 
Xarog said:
If the article is overbroad with its sentiments, then the wide brush stokes of your post are doubly so.
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... and the wide icky smudge of your finger painting, triply so...
 
cguy said:
There were only very few people that were involved with actually hiding the riskiness of the CDO's. The rating agencies most certainly shouldn't have rated them as AAA, and the handful of people that pushed the rating agencies (and those that accepted it at the ratings organization). The rest of the world assumed that if it was a AAA rated investment, then it met a certain risk profile.

I had someone try sell me CDO's in 2007. He pitched it as "basically like CDs, but not FDIC insured and can 'theoretically' go down." (CD is the US name for a fixed deposit). I'm under no illusion that he knew any more about it than a cigarette salesmen knew about their product in the '40s - I don't blame him - it is far beyond the scope of his job to understand these things - which is why there are rating agencies in the first place.
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http://michael-hudson.com/2016/08/finance-is-not-the-economy/
 
cguy said:
If you have an issue with something I've said - state what it is specifically so we can discuss it, rather than being a douche.
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You are offering blanket apologetics for an entire industry that is manifestly in need of a major overhaul.

You said that any article which talks about the evils of financialisation is full of shyt. So why don't you explain to me exactly what about Hudson's view is so terrible, because I've never actually seen anyone mount a reasonable criticism of his arguments, and I think his points undermines the argument you've made so far rather eloquently.
 
NarrowBandFtw said:
the more appropriate label would be banksters, to distinguish someone in the banking industry that maximizes profits through cheating, scheming, racketeering from someone who just happens to work in the banking industry with decent enough morals
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But but "the free market". :rolleyes:

cguy's post is on the money IMO. I know a guy who works a front office job and it's fascinating the world they live in. 99.99% of these "banksters" as you call them are just ordinary people winning big in the game of capitalism. It's not like they're breaking the law or anything.

The reputation they have is rooted in high profile criminal cases, Wall Street stereotypes from the 80s and run-of-the mill jealousy. Everyone is all "no government regulation", "lower taxes" etc. untill they come across a group of people making a killing earning more in a week than they do in a year.
 
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cguy said:
There were only very few people that were involved with actually hiding the riskiness of the CDO's. The rating agencies most certainly shouldn't have rated them as AAA, and the handful of people that pushed the rating agencies (and those that accepted it at the ratings organization). The rest of the world assumed that if it was a AAA rated investment, then it met a certain risk profile.
Click to expand...

Sure, I can buy that bit - how about the mortgage lenders who, once the appetite for home loans had been established, started making increasingly risky loans to support the CDO habit? That's a person to person transaction (borrower to lender) and requires a "moral relaxation" on a wide scale.
 
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