"The investment bank CEOs are pressured into continuously adding shareholder's value. Concerned with their young stars jumping ships, these executives spare no expenses in trying to cuddle them. The bankers ended up being pampered in every way possible: limosines, five start restaurantes and hotels, flying business class, first class. Personally, when I was out on business trips, I never had a cap put on my credit cards expenses. To be honest, after getting used to the high life for so long, it is really hard to leave."
"When you are pampered to that degree, how can you ever leave for a $360k NT (about $10k USD p.a.) job?"
"Things in Hong Kong, Singapre or New York were even more out of control. Talk about living the life of rich and famous! I have heard that as soon as bonuses were announced, the head of the trading floor would gather the troops and lead them to luxury item stores. I heard some morons spent twenty even over thirty thousand dollars in one single watch. There were even people heading out to purchase a yacht on the spot. It was totally a game of upmanship!"
"Investment bankers, being so used to this kind of high life, would never even entertain the thought of leaving. This is was highly addictive, like getting fed some kind of drug!"
"That's right, this life style keep you hooked, make you beg for more. From a psychological point of view, one's behavior can lead to changes in one's psyche. When you are accustomed to doing these sort of things[note: make huge amount of money for your bank, in turn for yourself], you are more apt to change your values. You start rationalizing your actions in order to keep doing what you have been doing."
"Listen, I can't even predict what will happen to my company's stock, so how can average investors in Taiwan even be knowledgeable enough to trade bonds based on certain North Brent Sea crude oil index? how can one predict what that index will be in a few years? if you do you are honestly "devastatingly better" than those investment bank analysts."
"It is seldom that you hear someone say, I am making all this money but I am feeling very guilty, so I better stop. So as long greed exists, there is gonna be inclination to squeeze as much out of this golden goose as humanly possible. It is like drilling for oil, one only stop when the well stop gushing oil. Things, the way they were playing out, would eventually head towards a cliff. Truth is people never know when to put on the brake. Even if one intends to do so, his/her boss would push one to keep going. So if it is your boss who wants to stop, his/her colleagues would not let him/her. It is like everyone tumbling down the hill together."
[to be continued]
