Cityboy's articles
Submitted by Cityboy on Fri, 06/19/2009 - 10:48.
‘Investment banking is a great business … if you’re an investment banker.’ What that old City joke reminds us is that the supposedly ‘sexy’ business of investment banking often handsomely rewards its employees rather than the shareholders of the parent bank or indeed society. That is because when you put together a bunch of smart, greedy, ruthless people in a financial institution they will find clever ways to make themselves as rich as possible irrespective of the long-term implications for everyone else. This basic truism helps explain why at Wednesday’s annual Mansion House speech, in which the Chancellor addresses City grandees, Alistair Darling was both right to say that a different boardroom culture is required but wrong to backtrack somewhat on the need for much tougher regulation.
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Submitted by Cityboy on Fri, 06/12/2009 - 13:13.
A former client took me out to lunch at a flash City restaurant last week to try and prove a point that we’d discussed over the phone. He had claimed that despite all the talk of gloom and doom things weren’t actually that bad in the City. I had scoffed at this seemingly preposterous viewpoint and mentioned the fact that perhaps 40,000 City jobs had been lost over the last 18 months and that bonuses for last year were down around 50%. He laughed at my reasoned arguments and told me to come to the City to see for myself.
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Submitted by Cityboy on Thu, 06/04/2009 - 16:52.
Whenever journalists ask me what I miss most about being a stockbroker I have no hesitation in replying that four-hour boozy lunches were always the highlight of my week. Unfortunately, it now appears that such behaviour is being frowned upon - as was shown recently when an oil trader called David Redmond was banned from working in the City for two years after coming back from ‘a drinking session’ and trading like a man possessed. Ostensibly, this poor bloke lost his job because he tried to conceal his trades from his bosses but the press and the City regulator have focussed most on the fact that boozing had ‘affected his behaviour.’
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Submitted by Cityboy on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 12:09.
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So, that’s it then is it? Eight months ago Lehmans collapsed, the cogs of global finance ground to a halt and stock markets began a precipitous dive so terrifying that George Bush claimed that ‘this sucker (e.g. western capitalism) could go down.’ Now, hardly a day goes by without some politician talking about ‘green shoots’ whilst experts across the world claim that everything’s gonna be just peachy. What may confuse readers even more is that as of this week most stock markets have risen by almost 30% since their lows in early March yet jobs are still being lost willy-nilly. So, just what the hell is going on?
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