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This is how the Regulatory Capture has come to be. None of those out protecting consumers from the finance industry are doing what really needs to be done, because they know that their next job is likely to be at one of the institutions they are investigating.

I believe it was This American Life that recently did a podcast that went into depth on this issue.




And you can't blame them. Look at this guy: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/peter-orszag-citigroup...

He went from making probably around 200k (my guess) to 3 million+. I would probably sell out for that money too.

The pay differential between banks and the rest is just too much.


Let's take this a different direction for a moment... Why is it that the IT industry screams that they have a labor shortage when salaries are flat. With million dollar salaries in finance you would think that industry must have a severe labor shortage.


They just pay out more of their (large) profits than tech business do. eg as if Google paid 100% bonuses every year as they are so profitable, rather than retaining cash, paying shareholders and paying executives a lot mainly retaining cash though).


> I would probably sell out for that money too.

It's good of you to admit that, but I have to ask: why? Why is 3 million so different from 200k as to be worth being willing to set aside ethics / become antisocial?


Two reasons:

- Do this for one or two years and you are pretty much set for life. That's pretty tempting

- I don't think the bankers think of themselves as antisocial or non-ethical.


If you're making 200k a year and manage your finances well you could retire pretty early, anyway.




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