WAR STORIES
Back when I was a newbie in financial services. I recall gathering round the elders, listening to tales of events of times past. The crash of the early '90s. I have even listened to a techhead or two talking about how 2001 was a year of despair. On one occasion an elder statesman took us on a retro ride as he reviewed the economic down turn brought about by the last world war. These sages never failed to remind us that these lessons could only be assimilated if one learned from experience. Otherwise the full implications of a down-turn can not be truly felt on the pages of a textbooks or journals.
Since I have spent the last couple of months in the epicenter of shock and aftershock created by the quake and mini tremors being experienced in the financial sector, I feel like I now qualify as a sage too. I feel like I have earned my stripes and now I can gather the newbies around and warn them about the emotional swings of this lady (Wall Street) they are courting. Yay! Omodudu now has street cred.
I can not wait for all this to be over, so that I can gather the newbies around and tell them war stories of days when the highs and lows would physically wear one out. Days when even the secretary involuntarily became a Street trader. One of the good outcomes of this crisis will be the high quality financial education that the regular guys are receiving. The average Joe is getting a crash course on financial life lessons. These lessons are delayed and long overdue, they ought to have being picked up while growing up, but the system was lax and therefore allowed for half baked adults. Indeed experience is the best teacher. An African saying goes thus; the lessons that the woman refused to learn from the mother will be taught to her by the husband (literal translation). Consumers are beginning to get accustomed to hearing the word "NO". PRICELESS.
Side note: My heart goes out to the 50% of Bear's employees and the 50% of Goldman's employees whose heads have been chopped off by the axman. Especially those that have crossed the Atlantic in search of a better life. Keep your head up, and remember its just a cycle. We will be back shey?
3Comment(s):
My neighbors and I spent a good 15 minutes talking about Wall Street outside our local supermarket last night. The review from my banker neighbor was quite depressing. I am calling all my financial sector friends this week to check up on them God only knows what they are going through.
Hello,
I could only wonder if your last paragraph would feature in your Sage of Wall Street recollections.
Delivered with such irony almost devoid of sarcasm and full of empathy - they had their heads chopped off by the axeman and you counsel further on - keep your head up.
Hopefully, the axeman is not using a rotary blade - there is already too much blood on the street.
Makes one wonder if people in the financial sector have more than one head and their thinking with the wrong head caused the problems we now have.
Hopefully, the head that is left remembers the good old-fashioned banking values that made one trust both the bank manager and have faith in strength of the building in which our money is kept.
What is manifesting in the U.S and reverberating around the world is the fall-out of an unbridled game of capitalism. And 'the heads that are being chopped off' are the puns of the game... there is always plenty of them, unfortunately. But those heads need not be chopped - it's the headers of the players that should... and be buried!