Finance is a Scam, We Admit It

by Johnny Debacle

If you’ve gone into finance from any liberal arts college, you almost certainly have encountered and befriended in the past people who act like finance types are scammy. “They don’t really make anything.” “They just move numbers around and somehow get paid for it.” “They have to be leeches.”

Normally our response was something like “At age 32, I will be worth my weight in gold, literally” or the more cogent, “Finance is a coordinator of economic activity, a grand sorter of what endeavours are the best for the world.”

But with this admission by Citigroup (NYSE: C) that it is loaning money to KKR to buy hung loans off Citi’s books, we will admit it: finance is a scam. A big scam in which people who are incrementally better than you in every way, smugly take money from the plebes, launder it through assorted transactions, and then redistribute to themselves in the form of huge bonuses, bonuses incommensurate to the zero value which they add to society.



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Comments

  1. To The Hilt
    October 5th, 2007 | 10:09 am

    That post can’t be used against us in a court of law, can it?

  2. mini ballerette.
    October 5th, 2007 | 11:20 am

    crisis of conscience mr debacle? I think someone needs a G&T…

  3. Boston
    October 5th, 2007 | 11:25 am

    … and the truth shall set you free

  4. Poseidon
    October 5th, 2007 | 1:22 pm

    Nonsense Debacle,
    Warriors and financiers are the two greatest callings in the history of man. Stand tall and proud and don’t speak the unthinkable and diminish or tarnish or sully even that great task set before us to enrich the world, uplift sullen economic systems, and create abundant wealth for all God’s creatures. With abundance, whether fiat or real, comes optimism, and optimism, sir, is the true currency that compels our civilization forth into new and righteous pursuits, creating an environment for our children, and our children’s children, to thrive and succeed in ways our ancestors would never have imagined.

  5. miami
    October 5th, 2007 | 3:22 pm

    Ixnay on the onfessioncay on Fridays.

  6. To The Hilt
    October 5th, 2007 | 3:27 pm

    Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America!

    Gentlemen!

  7. bfellows
    October 5th, 2007 | 4:03 pm

    I side with Poseidon on this one. Look at our proud history… Lloyd’s may not have made the world go round but starting in the 1600’s it made the ships go round the world. Our modern day exploitation models – uh, I mean excel models are based off of that era’s initial equations.

    What I’d really like to see is Realtors sac up and admit this… (wait, did I push that too far? I’m guessing I’ll piss off some readers since there seems to be almost 1 realtor for every 35 houses…)

  8. JT
    October 5th, 2007 | 5:26 pm

    Real estate broker types are truely the leeches of society. I had thought that by 2007 they would have been almost completely phased out by the internet, sigh…

  9. Bakunin
    October 7th, 2007 | 9:45 am

    A sermon from the “Mount”
    Tell it like it is, sweet Jesus

  10. mickslam
    October 7th, 2007 | 11:23 am

    It is hard to feel bad about it, though

    Plus Ayn Rand thinks I’m the bees knees.

  11. George
    September 20th, 2009 | 9:17 am

    In the 1960’s the USA was a great manufacturing economy. In the 2000’s the US will be a burger king/service economy. In the 2040’s, the US will be a basket weaving economy? Why?

    A few more rounds of foreclosures and we will see blood