Every major pulp fiction hero, worth his salt, established or took forward an investment bank in the 60 years these book usually span. He went to Harvard, he has to go to Harvard, nothing less would do, and then he landed up in a chairman`s chair kept hot for him by his Dad (who by the way too went to Harvard nothing less does.)
The bank usually named after him, for ex Kaura, Kaura & only Kaura Bank, he has a house, no he has a palace which he has inherited, which has about 20 rooms, gardens, pools, the works, you know nothing less would do. And he gets a girl who usually has passed through Radcliffe, and happens to be the most beautiful and intelligent of her generation...nothing less would do.
And for us mere mortals, the closest we could get to the hero, was too slog to get into one of the IIMs and then hope that Lehmann Brothers would pick you up. But lehmann Brothers went belly up this past week. 158 year old firm is today selling its buildings for some much needed "investment".
"Lehman is dead, Bear and Merrill sold; and Goldman and Morgan have announced that they were retiring, as it were, telling the Fed that they were fundamentally restructuring themselves and asking —
asking! — to be regulated as commercial banks.That wouldn't do, would it?"
With the US government planning to socialize the losses and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon demanding less "uncritical faith in the 'magic' of markets," the live by the sword and you die by it era of capitalism may be over. Everybody would now concentrate on keeping the risks down and keeping their asses covered. The investment banker who takes a foolish risk, and is rewarded when it pays off maybe history. Their goes the fun. "Bye-Bank".
"Lehman is dead, Bear and Merrill sold; and Goldman and Morgan have announced that they were retiring, as it were, telling the Fed that they were fundamentally restructuring themselves and asking —asking! — to be regulated as commercial banks.That wouldn't do, would it?"