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There is noooo guarantee of making decent money in IB
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<p>Well, let's see. Starting compensation (salary+bonus) for investment bankers in the so-called bulge-bracket on Wall Street (where most US bankers are) is around 90-130k. Yeah, that's to start - so you're 21/22 years old and making that kind of money. It only shoots up from there.</p>
<p>Look at these numbers. Notice how these are 1999 figures.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.careers-in-finance.com/ibsal.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.careers-in-finance.com/ibsal.htm</a></p>
<p>Now, of course, the downsides are that first of all, there's no guarantee that you're even going to get a bulge-bracket IB job. True. but on the other hand, there's no guarantee that you're going to get admitted to medical school either. According to the AAMC, about half of all people who apply to med-school get rejected from every single med-school they apply to. Yep, that's right, every single one. </p>
<p>The other major downside of IB are the hours you work - literally 90+ hours a week. But compared to the hours that a doctor on residency puts in, it seems comparable. </p>
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It's a cheap degree compared to engineering, and very cheap degree compared to an M.D.....it'll be flooded in no time.
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<p>Cheap degree? What does that have to do with anything? Like I said, not everybody who wants to be a banker gets to be one - but on the other hand, not everybody who wants to be a doctor gets to be one. And not everybody who wants to be a star banker gets to be one, but as seen above, even the nonstars make substantial money (and as discussed by other people, not everybody who wants to be a star doctor gets to be one). </p>
<p>You also talk about flooding of the industry. I don't see how that's relevant. You can't just decide you want to become a banker, you have to actually get hired into the industry. But that's no different from medicine. Just because you want to be a doctor doesn't mean that you'll get into medical school. </p>
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3> It's the "in-thing" for the moment, but many professions come and go due to lack of barriers.
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<p>IB has been the 'in-thing' for at least 100 years now, ever since the US became a major worldwide financial powerhouse, and will continue to be so as long as the US is a top financial player in the world marketes. Many people have said that the heyday of Ibanking was actually in the 1980's, during the whole 'Greed is Good' decade, yet as you can see today, they still make massive amounts of money. </p>
<p>I'll put it to you this way. JP Morgan was, at his time, by far the richest man in the world, because of his great success in investment banking. That was during the Gilded Age of the late 1800's. The creation of US Steel by Morgan is considered to be a classic move in investment banking. Morgan was so successful that he was widely credited with saving the US Federal banking system during the 1895 banking system by injecting his own personal wealth into the world banking system at an opportune time. The Bush family made its financial fortune because of Prescott Bush's success in investment banking in the 1920's-1930's. The Kennedy family made its financial fortune because of Joseph Kennedy's banking success also in the 1920's. Robert Rubin, widely respected US Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton, is worth hundreds of millions of dollars because of his great Ibanking success that he and Jon Corzine (now Senator from New Jersey) enjoyed at Goldman Sachs in the 1960's-1980's. The point is, I don't see any evidence that Ibanking is a 'fad'. </p>
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Doctors and Lawers have the USMLE, bar exams and state licensures that control the supply of the professonals....they make sure their wages NEVER go down. What tests, licensure and credentials do IBers need?
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<p>So you are now basing your argument of professional licensiture? IB, especially at the high end, is really like sales. You don't need licensiture for that. The more business you bring into the bank, the more money you make. Star bankers who are bringing in a lot of business make a lot of money. Even beginning bankers, as you have seen above, make a lot of money. </p>
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IBers have a "fuzzy" job...i.e., no hard lines defining their job, no credentials certifying that they're even qualified to be giving advice on investments...can they predict the future of stocks and bonds? If so, how and how will they prove it to their employer?
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<p>Uh, perhaps you don't understand what IB is. IB is not about being a stockbroker. IB is about helping companies issue IPO's, issue bonds, perform mergers and acquisitions, etc. More broadly speaking, IB can also be about leveraged buyouts, hedge funds, etc. </p>
<p>For example, when Verizon bought MCI, the individual investment bankers who led that deal made millions, probably tens of millions each - just off that one deal. When SBC bought AT&T, the same thing happened. </p>
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> Most of all, how long b4 employers decide the IB fad is over, or no longer needed, or outsourced or just simply destroyed by better data mining algorithms?
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<p>Again, the evidence strongly indicates that IB is not a 'fad' (or if it is, it's at least a 125 year fad that is still going on very strongly). Furthermore, IB is one of the most resistant jobs to outsourcing, simply because IB, at its core, is really about salesmanship and relationships, which are impossible to be outsourced. Deals are made because of who knows who. I would argue that medicine is far far more liable to be outsourced to another country. After all, if I can get reliable and safe LASIK cheaply in another country, why would I do it here? Surely you've seen the latest articles that discuss how India now wants to get into medical services - offering expensive operations like plastic surgery on the cheap. It is now clearly true that much of the diagnostic services that doctors can provide can be outsourced. Why do I need to get my local doctor to read my Xrays and my MRI's when I can have them transmitted to some doctor in India or China
who can read them for me? </p>
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"It's not like you get into medical school and you can simply decide what specialty you want to enter.You may well find yourself in a lower-paying medical specialty."</p>
<p>What??? When you file for residency, you apply for a very specific specialty!!!! YOU get to decide what you want to do.
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<p>How's that? Most of the top residency choices are competitive - there are more people who want them than there are spaces available. When 20 people want the neurosurgery residency, but there are only 5 available spots, 15 people are left out in the cold. It's a competitive process - not everybody gets what they want. </p>
<p>"Access to graduate medical training programs such as residencies is competitive. Applicants apply to programs, are selected for interview, and submit a rank-order list to a centralized matching service (currently the 'National Residency Matching Program' (NRMP). Residency programs submit a list of applicants in rank order as well. The two parties' lists are combined by an NRMP computer which (theoretically) creates optimal matches of residents to programs. On a certain day in March each year 'match day' these results are announced and are celebrated in hospitals and medical schools nationwide."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/medical-residency%5B/url%5D">http://www.answers.com/topic/medical-residency</a></p>
<p>"During the last year of medical school, students apply for postgraduate residencies in their chosen field of specialization. These are more or less competitive depending upon the desirability of the specialty, prestige of the program, and the number of applicants relative to the number of available positions. All but a few positions are granted via a national computer match which pairs an applicant's preference with the programs' preference for applicants. "</p>
<p><a href="http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=3jpoe632ai5dc?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Physician&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc01b%5B/url%5D">http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=3jpoe632ai5dc?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Physician&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc01b</a></p>
<p>So, I agree, you can list what you want, but you have no guarantee that you are going to get what you want. </p>
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....ask your local opthamologist that does 20-30 lasik operations a day for 3 days out of a week for $4000 a pop. You do the math....even after malpractice insurance and equipment costs, he can easily clear $5M.
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<p>Come now, do you really think that every opthamologist out there is getting to do 20-30 operations a day for $4000 a pop? I can accept that the stars are getting that. But every single clinic out there? You know and I know that there are many clinics offering LASIK out there, and many of them offering cutrate prices. In my paper today, there is one clinic offering LASIK for both eyes for $799. After all - think about it - how many people in the country really need LASIK, and are willing to pay $4000 a pop?</p>