"You've always had this Wall Street ethic of, I'm going to push the rules as far as I can. That's been part of the culture," said R. Edward Freeman, academic director of the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics and Olsson Professor of Business Administration at University of Virginia's Darden School.
The long hours many bankers work help feed an attitude of entitlement, Freeman said.
The spoiled brats who run the investments in your retirement account will never stop trying to take your money. They've been raised to believe that they are superior to the rest of us financially, physically, and morally. The work ethic is an expression of separateness and distinction from the hoi polloi more than a desire for reward. More insights from the same article:
"Thain is a symbol of the species. It's a breed that I think is going to have to change its habits, at least for a time," said James Post, a management professor at Boston University. "We have lots of students who wanted to work on Wall Street. That lifestyle is not going to be there for most of them, if not all of them, for many years to come."
Unfortunately the professor doesn't dig deep enough for the real answer. I don't know if he's ever worked on Wall Street, but he should try to study this species up close instead of remaining detached.
I'll always be honest. I envy preppies for the numerous advantages that pedigree and family connections provide. It's too bad that these fools decided collectively that people like me aren't "qualified" to work on Wall Street, because my application of honesty and common sense may have helped prevent their firms from imploding. No guarantees here, just an offer of charity.
Attention preppies: The academics above are correct that the lifestyles you were raised to expect by your parents and prep school headmasters are definitely gone for at least half a generation. That is your karmic punishment for failing to include people like me in your career paths and social circles. Meanwhile, the next generation of low-cost entrepreneurs (including yours truly) is building enterprises to capture all of the wealth you're going to miss. You will not be invited to our IPO parties, which is fair because the investment banks you've ruined with your greed aren't solvent enough to participate in the underwriting.
