So I work at City Hall for Mayor Bloomberg. One of my coworkers, as it turns out, used to work at Goldman Sachs, the eponymous firm which represents success in the financial industry. I was surprised, and I’m sure many of you are wondering why this individual is not there today. All I can say is that I know he didn’t want to continue a Wall Street career. I’m banking-friendly, and by that, I want to hint at the fact that I don’t mind what banks do (as long as I’m not being screwed over), but at this point, with a hit on compensation packages, people begin to question the career choice. If I get a banking internship this summer (I know, a long-shot, but still a possibility), I’ll accept the offer, since I’m more than eager to learn about the financial services industry and its products. Plus, the people that I’ve networked with are some of my coolest friends.
For the rest of the world though, is banking losing its shining luster? Will NYU Stern’s golden reputation mean nothing as the “dream careers” cycle back to law and medicine? The economic power of the banking industry is nothing but marvelous, but will it shrink? What will happen to these massive “too-big-to-fail” firms? For instance, I recently read that Goldman Sachs should go private again to get out of the spotlight and have control over employee pay again. These questions we all want answers to, the same way we want to know where we’ll all be in ten years, and I want to know one thing: will banking be the right career choice for me?
In other economics news, John Sexton apparently moderated at Davos, Felis Rohatyn, André Meyer’s (as in Meyer Hall) controversial successor at Lazard Frères, and the G-d of M&A has returned as an advisor, and the City budget was presented in the Blue Room today!
