Most Economic majors at Princeton become bankers or traders. It is the closest thing to business or finance that you will find there and it serves as an excellent launching pad to a career on Wall Street. However, after my junior year I decided to pursue a different path and left Wall Street to my classmates. Despite my love of finance, as evidenced by this blog, I have never really regretted the decision.
However, when I see headlines like this, I have to wonder if I chose the wrong profession. Ken Lewis, the CEO and Former Chairman of Bank of America, lost his title of Chairman of the Board. For those that are not totally familiar with the situation, Bank of America is one of the financial institutions most in trouble. They have made several very questionable acquisitions such as Countrywide Financial and Merril Lynch. The results for Bank of America is a stock priced that has dropped about 95%. Since the CEO is chiefly responsible for the financial success and failure of the firm as measured by its stock price, I would say Ken Lewis has not done such a hot job.
His punishment, he loses the title of Chairman but keeps both his CEO position and his seat on the board. God, how awful. What’s next? They dock his pay by $1000? Yeah, that would really hurt him. Don’t you just love demotions that aren’t really demotions? I wish I had such a high paying job with such job security. Must be nice.
That is a pretty sweet deal. I want to sign up for that job. If I make bad decisions resulting in a 95% stock drop and the only punishment I need to face is a very slight change in my title, how cushy is that?! This reminds me of the the AM/PM commercial… you know, the one where this kid gets promoted for no apparent reason and the office is loaded with cool high tech toys with a 6-week paid vacation to think about the offer and the tag line is “You can never get enough good stuff”. Who says TV doesn’t depict real life? I wonder if B of A is hiring…
LOL! It could be worse. If you work in the government sector, the only way to “fire” someone is by promoting him to another department; So instead of getting rid of a poor worker, you pass him off to another department and have him assume a higher position… Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a recipe for disaster…
yeah, i’ve heard of stories like this and it is all the more reason why I hate big government.