Mind on Money

Good Intentions

December 23, 2011 at 2:29 pm | Posted in wall street | 10 Comments

When I joined the ranks of Wall Street’s investment bankers, I was what they called a “rocket scientist.”  I never worked on spacecraft, but I did hire real rocket scientists along the way, along with software engineers, an Air Force test pilot, finance professors, and more than a few freshly-minted MBA’s.

I called what I was doing “financial engineering” when my friends outside the business asked for stock tips. Even though I paid attention to the stock market before I worked on Wall Street and after, I actually had no time for stocks when I worked there, so I never had any tips for my friends.

But back to Financial Engineering.  As far as I know, I was the first person to refer to my vocation by that phrase, though since that time I’ve seen universities award degrees in it.

During those early years of my career, I was lucky enough to love what I did, to get paid well (though not nearly as well as the more effective political operators around me), and to perform a service that I could see was helping a huge swath of my fellow Americans.

So why did structured mortgage finance turn into a “force of evil” that nearly drove the world economy into a second great depression? Continue Reading Good Intentions…