…in walks an older, well coiffed british guy. I know what comes next, he makes some small talk, drops reference to Oxford, mentions his vacation to maldives, and he has not prepared a lick for this meeting. Can’t walk through any financial statement. Result, an offer to meet for coffee to get me the info I asked for at this meeting.
i dont know but i’ll find out! thats how you’re supposed to respodn to everything!
how do you know if someone has been to Oxford?
They mention it within 5 minutes of meeting you.
also a harvard joke. its also quite true. at least whne ur a 20 something.
His dad probably doesn’t even own a dealerships.
#cya
Should have told him America First.
Can’t thank your dad enough. My (awesome) Miata continues to turn heads in the neighborhood!
#ZoomZoom
pinnacle of 90s success is a new mazda miata! for some reason i think of ohai as the asian with the curly hair!
Is it just me, or are a lot of British finance people just a bunch of fluffers who don’t know what they are talking about? The good ones in London are mostly foreign people who work in UK.
Wait, the guy in the commercial is Asian Jim from the Office.
looking good good-looking car!
Much the same as how most American finance people are just a bunch of overly earnest blowhards with little to no knowledge.
What does that mean? UK, based on my observation, attracts talented people from Asia and EU. They are a small country relative to the US, so naturally, to maintain a comparable finance sector, they must draw primarily from other countries for talent. Among the British, finance seems to channel from strict hierarchical structures. Societal sorting starts from secondary school or sooner, and one thing finance workers seem to have in common is that they were channeled into a social tier from a young age.
I’m not saying this does not happen in the US. However, if you attend an elite university, for instance, in the US, you’d find the students to be reasonably diverse, and that diverse students pursue any field. I do not really support affirmative action, as it does not align with my personal interests and values. However, I will still admit that the US does a reasonable job of ensuring somewhat diverse representation, even among selective professions. So, even if Goldman only hires from Harvard and Yale, they’d still achieve some talent diversity.
If you were to measure knowledge output, it would be difficult to demonstrate that the study of business is more advanced in any country but the US. US has the objectively best universities, and especially the best business schools, the most money, and the most capitalistic society. Large US companies are the most dominant, innovative and successful than anywhere else. The strongest banks to rebound from the 2008 crisis are also US banks. It’s natural to conclude that the US would produce more knowledgeable business workers, counter to your assertion.
This might not persist indefinitely, but where finance is concerned, the UK is in clear decline, caused by their stubbornness and clinging to their past. It is time to be flexible, practical, and logical if the UK wants to maintain relevance in any form.
Lol brexit is where you pinned their downfall? Not when India left? When they got destroyed by Germany even though they weren’t a target? Or perhaps when we were able to leave them because of their war with France? Isolation is key!!! Really sad what happened to that powerful empire that controlled the world 
That’s true. I guess it is a matter of perspective. London is still a leading financial hub though. Until 2012 or so, they were bigger than NY. However, I fear that with Brexit, and the subsequent loss of both EU banking licenses and qualified foreign workers, London’s decline will only accelerate. Global firms have already begun to relocate operations to Ireland, France or Spain. That the UK attracted business through its cultural reputation more than knowledge or innovation is also true. Of course, that too is also in jeopardy as it withdraws from international markets.
I was facetiously making a blanket sweeping statement in response to your blanket sweeping statements. Sometimes I wonder if you’re on the spectrum, neebs.
From my experience of working in London, Edinburgh, Sydney and NYC I’ve found the US to be by far the strictest in terms of channelling candidates from certain social hierarchies. Education in the UK is far less vocational than in the US and you don’t need to pick you career until you’ve obtained your degree, there are people from far more diverse academic backgrounds in London than in NYC and aside from some small niches of finance you really don’t need to have attended a certain school and university to get in. Some MDs will have their preference but it’s not totally endemic like in the US. Another huge factor is that you don’t need $150k+ to get a degree from a good uni in the UK. Even with scholarships you can’t escape how rigged that makes the system in the US. If you consider diversity from a superficial perspective, ie race then yes, US top unis probably are more racially diverse than the UK but the UK is still considerable more racially homogenous than the US.
Nobody could argue against the success of the US headquartered banks post crisis but it’s reductive to think of US vs non-US banks considering they all operate globally. Since the crisis London has been addled with much stricter and more responsible regulation than Wall Street driven mainly by public opinion. It would be difficult to overstate the negative public opinion of investment bankers in the UK. The public and media don’t like the pay and shareholders don’t like the risk. The assertion that the US has “objectively” the best universities gave me a giggle.
The UK is in clear decline for a multitude of reasons but it’s a huge logical leap to attribute that to stubbornness and clinging to their past.
I honestly don’t know if you’re referring to the first or the second world war but it’s hilarious that you say in the same post that ‘isolation is key’ I wonder what would’ve happened if Great Britain, the worlds super power at the time and an island nation 700 miles from the conflict had sat back and done nothing or arrived extremely late during either of those conflicts. That’s notwithstanding the fact that involvement in both conflicts was the right thing to do.
But to answer your rhetorical question, it was the 2nd world war that precipitated the downfall of the British empire and resulted in the UK retracting back to a position you’d expect for a small island nation. Not sure many current British citizens would argue that the break up of the empire was a bad thing.
That’s the first time I’ve heard an American accurately describe American independence.
SORRY GRINGO!!! I lost it due to my nationalistic fervor! even though the us is not my native country, i just love it soo soo much. i am a big fan of great britain. you guys made spice girls.
^ I’m more of a Proclaimers man myself
the right thing is not always the smart thing to do!
anyways there are a lot of other injustices going on right now that are in a much smaller scale and easier to fix. most choose to do nothing for the most part!