No, of course not. I know some hedge fund managers who grew up middle-class and achieved their wealth through grit and hard work. Whether we like what they do is another story; they're not part of the parasitic upper class, and they're generally not evil people. They have more in common with startup new-money.
The people I'm talking about come from a closed, powerful social network. They're not part of a social network because they're rich. They're rich because they're part of a scumbag old-boy network. And they get their wealth the same way corrupt government officials (notice that corrupt politicians are always rich) do: they steal it from society.
By the way, it's not arbitrageurs (which is what many hedge fund traders are) who are destroying society. Actually, most of them make markets more efficient in a way that's rather harmless. It's investment banking/M&A types-- people like Meg Whitman who make fortunes spinning IPOs (that is, robbing companies during the IPO process). That's another rant however.
Evil? Maybe not. Hard working? Quite possibly. But almost definitely overpaid.
How much value does the banking industry really create? A whole lot of what this industry does could be replaced by algorithms and put on autopilot.
Maybe I'm ignorant, but it really looks to me that the smart and courageous decisions about allocating capital are being made by entrepreneurs, angel investors, and wealthy individuals who earned their money in value-producing industries (Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk come to mind). The banking industry seems to just squat over a lot of toll bridges, and doesn't seem to even do much in the way of bridge maintenance.
It's the many great leaders that end up transforming lives and countries, and so the tragedy of overcompensation in the finance industry is how it has attracted-away the world's smartest and most charismatic. Now these elite college grads hang out with each other instead of mentoring, inspiring, and setting an example for others. Instead of leading teams to accomplish great things, they are figuring out how best to fool the next guy.
Large-scale prosperity is far more likely when more America's smartest and most charismatic are leading instead of wheeling-and-dealing. Decline was inevitable as soon as high-finance ceased being the province of the boring and bookish.
Evil? Maybe not. Hard working? Quite possibly. But almost definitely overpaid.
Absolutely, and most of them will admit as much.
The banking industry seems to just squat over a lot of toll bridges, and doesn't seem to even do much in the way of bridge maintenance.
I have a lot more respect for traders, quants, and quant developers (who do an honest job, if a socially useless one) than for investment bankers ("eye-wankers") and private equity douches.
The people I'm talking about come from a closed, powerful social network. They're not part of a social network because they're rich. They're rich because they're part of a scumbag old-boy network. And they get their wealth the same way corrupt government officials (notice that corrupt politicians are always rich) do: they steal it from society.
By the way, it's not arbitrageurs (which is what many hedge fund traders are) who are destroying society. Actually, most of them make markets more efficient in a way that's rather harmless. It's investment banking/M&A types-- people like Meg Whitman who make fortunes spinning IPOs (that is, robbing companies during the IPO process). That's another rant however.