A meaningful job?

This blog is inspired by Daisy Lancashire's most recent blog post regarding investment bankers whereby she briefly discussed about a book titled The Accidental Investment Banker: Inside the Decade That Transformed Wall Street by Johnathan A. Knee. I read this book a while ago and I have to say it was both entertaining and enlightening. By reading this book, you would get a better understanding of what exactly an investment banker does or at least based on author's own experiences. Whether you think compiling a 50+ pages pitch book merely for the purpose of showing off is a meaningless job or not, it is for you to judge. In terms of how true the job nature is, only investment bankers themselves can give you any justifications. I am not an investment banker, but I do believe that there is always a reason for things and investment bankers have their fair share of sacrifices doing their job.

Anyhow, Daisy's entry reminded me of another book of similar genre titled: Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis. Majority of the book focus on the author's experiences as a trader. This book was first published in 1989 and what I found most interesting is the author's detailed discussion on the creation, development and the rise of the home mortgage securities / bonds trading within investment banks back in the EARLY 1980s. The sudden rise in the mortgages department within investment banks was sparked buy the establishment of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae whose main objectives were designed to guarantee the mortgages that did not qualify for the Ginnie Mae stamp. Well, shall I call these types of home loans sub-prime mortgages? You bet you can! As the author states, "once [these sub-prime mortgages] were stamped [by Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae] ... nobody cared about the quality of the loans. Defaulting homeowners became the Government's problem." I think the rest is history. A highly recommended read indeed !

The Accidental Investment Banker: Inside the Decade that Transformed Wall Street by Jonathan A. Knee (Oxford University Press, 2006)
Picture obtained from: Barnes & Nobles

Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis (Hodder and Stoughton, 2006)
Picture obtained from: Hodder and Stoughton