Merrill Lynch Needs a Dressing Down
Merrill Lynch is bullish on snobbery and status. These snobs, wearing more expensive suits, consorted to run their company into the ground. Now they look down on the company that rescued them and the people who work there as not being worthy, not sharing their own high status. It's another sign that failure will not humble Wall Street or cause them to change their ways. It's also a bad sign for Bank of America of the difficulty of getting these dandies to do an honest day's work.
These are the good people we're helping bail out and they look down their noses at the rest of us. It bothers me that we're providing welfare payments to people who fly first-class, stay in five-star hotels, eat in expensive restaurants, watch sports in skyboxes and travel in limos more frequently than rock stars, all the while being impeccably dressed in the classic fashion. It just makes me want to rise up out of my seat in coach, walk to the front of the plane and grab one of them by their silk tie. I want to scream: "Get out here, you bum. I know you're not the one paying for this." I'd half-expect them to defend themselves by saying "Hank Paulson said I could sit here."
The bare truth is that they have lived this lifestyle by taking people's money in return for worthless advice. Their specialty is knowing what's good for themselves, not understanding what's happening in the market. Read Michael Lewis's year-old article in Portfolio: The Evolution of an Investor about a broker named Blaine Lourd who finally understands the disservice he performs.
The problem was the entire edifice of modern Wall Street, in which some people —- brokers, analysts, mutual fund managers, hedge fund managers -— presented themselves as experts and were paid fantastic sums of money for their expertise. But essentially, Ellis argued, there was no such thing as financial expertise. "I read this book," Blaine says, "and I thought, My whole life is a lie, and everyone around me is facilitating this lie."If you see a broker dressing like one from Merrill Lynch, tell him to loosen his tie, roll up his sleeves a little and lose the Italian-made loafers. Tell him times have changed and he won't be dressing anymore like he's made of money.
the latest
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If things get to bad, could they sell the bronze bull for money?
Don't forget that B of A is also a corporation, and a pretty ruthless on at that. That's how they got to be "...the largest bank by asset[3] and second largest commercial bank by deposits and market capitalization in the United States." [Wikipedia]
'Bank of America' is just a brand name that was bought and applied to the business. They are not stand-ins for the American Citizenry as a whole.
Some banker wearing less expensive duds & a flag pin is just another darn wolf in sheep's clothing.
Ah, there was an old book, a classic...
"Where are the customer's yachts?" IIRC.
Oh, it's on big river, I won't bother to link.
I dunno, I'm taking all this with a boulder of salt. To the victor goes the opportunity of undoing the loser's reputation (Henry IV, Richard II). I'm just sayin.'
One thing that would go a long way towards changing this culture would be to kill networks like CNBC and Bloomberg.
Well I've seen plenty of people around me lose money in the market due to calls from "investors".
Sometimes I think a dart board might be more effective...
That and when I went to college, business was considered the slacker of degrees. If you didn't have it as a second degree you had no right to complain about the amount of work you had to do.
Once again I have to jump in to defend Italian footwear. Don't knock them until you've tried them. If It wasn't for Ferragamo loafers John McCain and I would have absolutely nothing in common.
"Tell him times have changed and he won't be dressing anymore like he's made of money. "
Baloney. Wall Street fleecing Main Street is the American way -- these people (or their homunculus clones) will always be there. The first (and possibly last) people paid off in Bush's Wall Street Bailout were the people who drove it into the ground in the first place. You certainly don't see the banks spreading the wealth around, and the compensation clauses have been redacted from publicly available documents.
Talk about epic win pulled from epic fail!!
I'm sure not going to defend the brokers, and this "bailout" is just another way for Bush and his cronies to plunder the republic, but I did work at Merrill Lynch and other brokerages back in the '80s (as a temp), and I sure didn't see the kind of behavior referred to in the article, or no more so than in any other brokerage or law firm. The workers didn't make that much money, the brokers were flying around like freaks trying to swindle more money out of investors, and if they cared what they wore, they kept spilling take-out Chinese food all over it. Now, at Smith Barney I had an associate who would check the brand of tie I was wearing (usually something under $5 bought at Robbins Discount!), or shoes (Florsheims, oo ah), and make fun of me, but the managing partner I worked for put him in his place post haste, showing that he wore the same brands - albeit in much better shape than mine! I know the '90s changed things, with even more money pouring in, and there are always assholes with egos dependent on their costumes and toys, but this article strikes me as mere rabble-rousing rant.
Ewwwww - disturbing post. In nearly a decade of reading this is the first time BB has hit such a sour note editorially.
Maybe it's the simplistic reductionism, or the victim-like sense of class bitterness, the ham handed grouping of an entire workforce based on uniform, or maybe its that I'm shocked to see anyone on BB waving a lapel flag.
It's not that I disagree, or that the post would offend me on another blog, it's just that I have come to expect a higher degree of subtlety and insight here.
"Yes, always tip the stylist 15%. Listen, John, I've gotta go, T. Boone Pickens just walked in. Just joking. No, don't tip the owner of the salon. Okay John? Right? Got it."
Completely devoid of its context, it makes an amazing sculpture. I'd look great in a park. Put some steps up so the kids could climb on it? Possibly a little dangerous, but it still sounds like a fun park piece.
When Lyndon Johnson moved into the White House he horrified a number of Kennedy people with his vulgarity. The sneers were visible. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr, an Establishment aristocrat, commented that LBJ had "shit on his boots." And yet, with the exception of Vietnam (always that terrible exception), he proved to be a much better president. The fruits of his hard-fought civil rights legislation were borne out two weeks ago.
"Dear southwestern Connecticut, we are going to get our money back from you."
Signed Your Friends, the rubes.
There's that line from "Ghost World" where the obnoxious guy says to Hell with rebellion, "I'm gonna get me a high paying job and f$%k things up from the inside!"
Sometimes I think, maybe those guys on Wall Street know the big picture better than we think, they know the great collapse is coming, that there really is no hope for the human race or the planet, global warming, loss of resources, overfishing, overpopulation . . . they are out to earn enough to buy a big enough estate to coast out the coming wars, or at least live large enough to enjoy it all before it goes down the toilet.
Post their names and make them famous.
Thinkerer - Baloney. Wall Street fleecing Main Street is the American way -- these people (or their homunculus clones) will always be there.
Name ONE investment bank on Wall Street.
There are zero, none, bupkiss there as of last month.
The ground under their feet is shifting, it's friendly advice to them that they change their shoes.
I think Bank of America being held up as a symbol of working class America is worse than Wall Street's un-repentent ego. Bank of America is by no means a 'roll up the cuffs' company. They saw an opportune moment to snap up another investment as they have done with many small local bank chains for 20 years.
Please don't drag us dandies into this.
Bank of America formerly owned Charles Schwab & Co., Merrill Lynch's discount competitor. The Schwabbies didn't mix with BofA either -- and both are California companies. My prediction for the merger was that ML isn't ML if owned by BofA: it will either go away or buy it's freedom back.
I am fine with it going away, or being reinvented as BofA Financial Services (formerly Merrill Lynch).
meetrobclark,
Your link can go on your profile page. Thanks.
So true. When ML bought up First Franklin they told all of us first franklin employees NOT to make "bull" jokes at all. They took their logo very seriously and bull jokes would not be tolerated.
That is an awesomely cool bronze though . . . . .
-abs did read the article, but as is often the case chooses to tangent off in a totally different direction from the article, in this walking alongside Wolfiesma in #12
These guys are stealing everything because their future was in doubt for some time. What the hell do you need a broker for when you can do any of your trading by yourself, online? The second that the secret that financial advice was just so much hocus-pocus, people would be dropping these guys like bad habits. Good riddance.
As for their supposed snobbery, its all about the The Grasshopper and the Octopus.
Halliburton has it all wrong...you don't need to risk your life in Iraq to bilk America of billions of dollars...do it from the comfort of your own penthouse!
Funny, I was just reading this today:
On the pretext of founding a benevolent society, the lumpen proletariat of Paris had been organized into secret sections, each section led by Bonapartist agents, with a Bonapartist general at the head of the whole. Alongside decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux [pimps], brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars — in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French call la bohème; from this kindred element Bonaparte formed the core of the Society of December 10.
-Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.
I think we can probably fit derivatives traders somewhere in there.
Dale, take a breath and step back. There are no "good guys" here, just different wolves in various farm animals' clothing.
After many years in the office equipment business, I can say without doubt not only did the investment companies dress better, but they were also more laid back and fun. The banks were always uptight and running tight, they wouldn't spend a penny on a new computer or copier until the one they already had was failing daily.
ROSSINDETROIT, welcome back! Missed ya.
#27 (carriem) - It's true.
My money has been mishandled just as badly by B of A as it ever has by any of the mutual funds which are supposed to be handling my 401k.
The only difference is with High Street banks they get to screw over the poor saps who trust them with their money by landing them with dubious credit cards and all sorts of banking fees for technicalities. With the investment banks, they can just squander your money on a bad bet without even telling you why.
The whole financial system needs better oversight.
It's funny, I look around the trading floor I'm on right now and see very few suits. Lots of dress shirts, but few that stand out as expensive. Standard shoes... a good pair of Eccos on my feet. Generic slacks.
The sales guys and those that deal with clients face-to-face are in suits. Everyone else is essentially business casual.
And as I walk around the district, I always laugh at the young guys thinking they're shooters in their Armani and $100 haircuts. They stick out in this financial district, and always have. Bay St. ain't Wall St.
Then again, nobody here makes hundreds of millions.
@ 22 No Bull eh?
Same pattern over and over again. A small group of people are able to beat the market until everyone starts copying them, then they become the market. As dimension grows it will become the market.
The real secret to beating the market is to bank the gains year in year out.
Capitalism for the masses (lost your job/can't pay the rent? = Live in a box under the bridge) Socialism for the Classes (Taxpayer-funded caviar for executives of those too-big-to-fail corporations) That's the fruition of the bill-of-goods sold to us by the Republicans starting with Reagan. And still, 58 million people voted for more of the same McCain.
Meanwhile, let the looting of the Treasury continue apace, they are making sure there's not a crumb left for Obama's agenda. Almost like this whole crisis was ... planned.
as far as the banking and investment world goes my knowledge goes about as deep as a sheet of paper. and yet, the problem is not the snobbery of traders et al. the real problem began with the deregulation of banking years ago that led to the subprime lending debacle on top of the implosion of the real estate bubble that we are just beginning to feel the repercussions of. we should also figure in large retailers saturating their own markets to drive out competition as well as most cities buying in to the promises of big developers. it wasn't Wall St. that forced most americans to over-value their property and use credit to spend money they don't have. there is a wide spectrum of blame to be laid here and it's systemic, not specific. the Boing Boing article smacks of class-ism and sounds too close to the the anti-intellectualism that's been sweeping the nation. wall streeters are not the all powerful alphas of an 80's feel good movie. i know some of the only hedge fund guys who are still making lots of money and as much as i like them they are the biggest math nerds out there. it's too easy to blame the 'fat cats.' i mean come on. that's too Palinesque. as far as class fear goes i can easily under-class most anyone who posts on here. my sub-proletariat pedigree draws from a long line of cheap genes and bad-luck. and yet i'm sitting here in a thousand dollars worth of clothes typing on my mac book (and i'm not even wearing a suit). as many Frank Capra movies as i've tried to watch lately it's just not enough to look down on those who you imagine are looking down on you.
The original company name was Merrell, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and Bean. Then it was Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and Smith.
There was a switchboard operator in San Francisco who delighted callers. When they asked: "What Happened to Bean?" She responded, "He was canned." To my knowledge she was the only person at the company to have a sense of humor.
The guys customers call stock brokers are actually securities salesmen. Their job is to pitch to their clients whatever stock was just underwritten by their company.
Name ONE investment bank on Wall Street.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are the only two left, and (I believe) both have been reclassified as bank holding companies.
There are still tons of Manhattan-based companies that provide investment bank type services (e.g., M&A advisory) that do not function as brokerages.
There's another great article by the same author on the same site.
This article details one group of people who saw the end coming, invested appropriately, and made a bundle.
skabob @ #20: The Schwabbies didn't mix with BofA either -- and both are California companies.
BofA is not a California company. It used to be, but was acquired in 1997 by NationsBank (which promptly changed its name to Bank of America in order to take advantage of BofA's reputation) and is now headquartered in Charlotte, NC.
Just so you know, as well as these traders, you're also bailing me out. I work for a bank in London.
I started in the IT industry at 17 years old working two jobs. I was running cables by day and assembling PCs at night. There were no opportunities for me to go to university due to my family's financial position. Over the years I worked my way up into software jobs and in 1999 I emigrated to England.
My future wife and I arrived on these shores with a single rucksack of possessions each and enough money to cover a single month's rent and deposit in a dodgy part of town. After that we had 50 pounds left for food, transport, etc. We walked a lot! That's not easy with damaged knees.
Over the years I got rejected when applying for a lot of banking roles because of my lack of big bank experience. I was finally given a break at a bank in London and worked between 12 and 18 hours a day to get the job done and earn my place. Since then I've worked for two other banks, working one job by day and doing a degree at night and on the weekends. I also worked most weekends learning what I needed to in order to keep my job and keep moving forward.
5 years ago, at the age of 27, we finally bought a very small house at 3x our annual salary, contrary to the 5x deals and above that were on offer. We finally have more than just a single rucksack each and I'm finally on my way to having a degree.
I don't get million pound bonuses. I've had exactly 1 bonus in the past 5 years and it barely covered my next year's part time tuition. I don't get sabbaticals or time off to study - this comes out of my annual leave. I didn't make any of the decisions that put the financial world in the state it's in - I was just trying to find a job where I don't have to work 60 hour weeks and I can actually see my family once in a while.
I'm not the only one in this position. Before you gloat too much, try to remember that thousands of secretaries, security guards, office management staff and cleaners are losing their jobs too. We're not snobs, we don't wear expensive suits or drive expensive cars. We're just regular joe's who thought that through hard work and 18 hour days we could get ahead in life.
The knock-on effect of this means that your friends at ISPs are also going to be out of work. ISPs can now get guys who are used to running large international WANs to banking standards at a good rate. They're not going to want the self-taught Cisco hackers in the face of this. Development houses and consultancies can now get algorithm and complex system developers cheap, so good luck getting your first job out of university. Cloud computing, tolerant storage, large SANs - experts in these fields are now available cheap to non-finance companies and that's going to increase the barrier to entry for normal folk into these fields.
All I'm saying is let's not knock everyone in the financial sector and laugh too hard or get too angry. We're all going to get hurt by this mess and we're all going to feel the pain. Let's try and show some humanity and some grace for a change, and try and right the wrongs and move things forward.
Reminds me of Andrew Lahde's resignation letter.
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/10/andrew-lahde-go.html
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are the only two left, and (I believe) both have been reclassified as bank holding companies.
Two kept their names, but neither of those are investment banks either, as of last month, which was my point.
"Arrogant" and "condescending" also come to mind. These so-disant "winners" gauge themselves by how much money they can take for how little effort--kind of like a clown who stole a book out from under me.
--Mike
I worked for a time as a 'financial planner'. There were two running gags around the office:
1. We help people to invest their money until they don't have any more.
2. When we found a really bad financial situation in a financial analysis the advice was (out of the client's earshot) 'Budget $500 a month for lottery tickets'.
Please count me among those increasingly distressed at the vast oversimplification that leads to treating individual employees as though they are personally responsible for the corporate abuses. Yes, corporations are made up of individuals but the decisions are made by the 1% at the top.
Are you saying there's there's something wrong with making fun of people who wear American-flag pins on ill-fitting suits?
joemescher,
I've suspended your account for repeated blogwhoring.
Interesting to get comments from people who spent time as ''financial planners'' Usually those are people who get into the business for the money and quickly figure out that it's actually work and drop out fairly quickly. The real running joke in the end ''DOUGALL'' is when companies like Merrill Lynch weed out the jokers, the ones left standing are good hard working people that care for their clients.
Genni77, Maybe so, but at least in my case not true. I worked for a financial services company for some years, and 'worked' was the operative word. I was trained to analyse client's finances, find out what their goals were, and help them to create a plan to meet those goals in a realistic way. Sometimes it was to reduce taxes, sometimes it was to preserve an estate for their children, sometimes it was to create a better financial structure for a young family - life insurance if they needed it, a savings plan, teaching them to budget their expenses to match their income. I was never a stockbroker, or a salesman. Yes I sold a suite of products, but I was always clear with my clients that the purpose was to offer the best solution I had to meet their goals. I wore a nice off the rack suit, not Armani, and my end of the year bonus (if I got one) was hundreds, not thousands of dollars.
It irks me, as many others, that the higher echelons make massive incomes regardless of the company's results. More horrible though are all those who sell ultra high risk products, or offer mortgages to people who can't afford them. The end result is financial disaster.
Two things can make a difference - ethical behaviour (and companies encouraging and enforcing it), and strong and effective regulation of the companies in the financial sector. It does little good to complain. The people, through their servant, the government, must control the behaviour of the financial sector.
By the way, the joke about lottery tickets was a way of noting the awful mess people get into without professional advice.
Main Street has got to be the most aggravating coinage of the last few years.
What a coincidence. I worked for Merrill Lynch some time ago.
Merrill Lynch was the first bank to introduce dressing down on Fridays in my locality, and eventually allowed people to forego business attire unless meeting clients face to face.
As for the simplistic, childish ways of using inuendo other have done better than I could at criticizing it.
Antious, what is blogwhoring?
abusing the freedom of the house for personal gain.
Links on personal profile, welcome, personal blog links in every post, not so welcome.
Thanks. If you like this stuff, check out these girls.
Can some kind soul provide the link to the original WSJ article? (even if it is behind a subscription firewall)
I have looked high and low, but no joy.
Thx
When someone I knew worked at ML as an admin in M&A, there was this 25-year-old dbag. He would always have these "meetings" with his frat brother who worked at a bank they had close ties to. No work was ever discussed from what I heard, but CDN$30 gourmet hamburgers were consumed as part of a several-hundred-dollar meal.
Said dbag thought that dot-commers deserved to get laid off 'cos they did nothing but got big salaries and expense accounts. (In Canada, where nobody got those really big salaries in the so-called boom.)
I like to think that's he's now parking cars at that same restaurant at which he ate his $30 burgers now that the wind has gone out of that sector's sails somewhat.
I think we should be wary of institutionalizing the idea in the American consciousness of pure, unadulterated hate & contempt of an entire group of people.
The last time that happened so thoroughly, it led to the Holocaust.
Hate is a powerful thing. Direct it at those (bastards) responsible, and don't blame the entire financial sector. There are a lot of innocent people on Wall Street just as f*cked as many of us.
That said- the people who did this NEED TO PAY. I have NO sympathy for the bastards who created this mess. My family has lost most of their retirement savings, and I have been denied work here, on the OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE EARTH, for the direct reason being the financial crisis overnight wiped out half that business' reservations.
To anyone thinking you can flee America and not be affected by the current climate, you are a fool. It's affected every country somehow at this point. They have ruined the lives of people not only in the US, but Japan as well, where people are lining up in unemployment lines as I speak in record numbers.
f sw n f ths bstrds wh knw ws rspnsbl trppd n fr, 'd prbbly dd gs nd wlk wy.
For the record, I agree with you for most brokers.
However, the current broker I work with at ML is phenomenal. She called us the night before the ML deal was public & discussed it with us personally at 9pm that night. She has shown great patience and wisdom in guiding us through these tough times, and actually suggested getting out of the banking/finance stuff we were in and into "staples" about 8 months before this whole thing fell. She's always willing to conference with my wife and I after 5pm and her advice has saved us much money. She provides exactly the service we need her for and does it well: she keeps an eye on our finances and the markets and makes sure we are doing the right things at the right times.
She's fabulous and I'd recommend her to anyone.
Anyway, my guess is, it's like any unlicensed field. There's 10% maybe who really really know what they are doing, 20% who are relatively competent and then 70% who are either "C-grade students" or just fucking incompetent, but get paid just the same as the ones who know what they're doing. I look at the constant piece-of-crap projects turned out by the so-called "experts" in our own software development industry and I realize that those sort of egotistical gymnastics aren't relegated just to the finance industry. They just manage to get paid more while being douches than the ones in our industry do.
Peter
Oh, crap, this thread's already godwinned out. Never mind.
--Charlie
Perhaps somewhat off-topic but the photograph is iconic. How many sculptures from the late 1980's have acquired the same degree of recognition as the charging bull. For those interested in the history of the sculpture, check out the wikipedia entry at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charging_Bull .
While it does not own Di Modica's Charging Bull, Merrill does have an anatomically correct logo.
Today:
Yesterday:
Just an observation.
two different authors
just an observation
Yes, that didn't escape my notice.
I commented because I enjoyed the dramatic contrast between the two juxtaposed value systems. On the one hand the exaltation of the use of fine quality in those capacities closest to us, and on the other, ridicule for those who choose such fine quality.
It draws my attention to the motivations underlying what initially appear to be the same behavior.
As I sit here relaxing in my second hand office chair (the one the cat loves oh so much), scantilly clad woman rubbing my shoulders (not rented but owned), wearing my Rockports purchased at JC Penney and sweater that came from some store in New England (Mumsy bought it), I would like to say thank you for hitting the nail on the head.
While I can neither confirm nor deny that I am indeed somewhat, to a certain yet indeterminate degree, working in some remote aspect and backwater of said financial FUBAR, rest assured, this article is oh so accurate. In buckets. Exclamation point.
The term "bail-out" really is appropriate in this case.
Oh the tales that could possibly be told.
Remember the movie "Trading Places"???
Duke and Duke wind up begging on the street.
No. That I don't remember it is moot, as I'm pretty sure that it was fiction.