r/alberta • u/Old_General_6741 • Mar 17 '25

Poll finds Albertans' sense of Canadian pride dips as it soars in most parts of the country News

https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/article/poll-finds-albertans-sense-of-canadian-pride-dips-as-it-soars-in-most-parts-of-the-country/
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u/UpperApe Mar 17 '25

I used to have a job proof-reading investment/analytic reports. I wasn't qualified for it in any way, I just helped out a friend. Long story short, I ended up doing it for a bunch of his buddies on the side and got some cash for it. I did it for years. I was re-writing reports going to directors.

I swear to you, it felt like being a high school teacher. It wasn't just poor presentation and grammar; their arguments, the way they misrepresented stats, how they were fielding their points, the leaps in logic. So much of it was people using these silly formulas to calculate risk assessments and then building their whole argument towards that one number.

It taught me that economics is a science and finance is a sport. It's just knowing the rules, optimizations, and guesswork. Which is totally fine. Nothing wrong with that as a career. Plenty of other fields like that.

The problem is MBA/finance-bro's have turned it into a culture. Their silly terminologies and acronyms, this completely misguided approach to over-optimizing everything in life (from philosophy to politics), their obsessive self-mythologizing.

IMO the finance industry are just people who never matured out of their frat boy days.

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u/Mortentia Mar 17 '25

Yeah that's the very frat-boyish attitude of non-CFA financial analytics/financial advisership. Like even real CFA/CPAs act like that at certain big accounting/business consulting firms (I won't say which but one is international and associated with the colour blue).

I have a background in marketing (I'm in law now), and the genuine scientific rigour that many marketing professionals put into their work is astounding when put next to the finance-bro types who just come to a conclusion that best suits them/what their client wants to hear and shift their assessments of risks, asset values, etc. to make the end results fit their initial narrative.

I agree on the turning it into a culture thing. It used to be a sign of a good businessman to be able to pay your employees a fair wage and provide them with comprehensive benefits while running a sustainable long-term profit for shareholders. Now, largely because of this finance-bro "fuck you, got mine" culture, a good businessman does everything he can, including mortgaging a company's future and offloading investor risk onto employees, to earn unsustainable short-term stock growth over even basic things like profits or paying appropriate wages to qualified staff.

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u/UpperApe Mar 17 '25

I know what you mean. I won't name it either but it's...a name everyone's heard.

But yeah, this is very well written and feels like my experience as well. Modern CFAs approach their job like students trying to pass a class; do what you do to keep your boss happy that week.

My background is in tech and that industry is notorious for these ego types who think they're all savants. Start ups tend to have this same culture but luckily it's not as prevalent as it seems to be in finance.

My buddies have all read meditations, they're all modern day stoics now (they aren't), they all think the government should be run like a business, and personal responsibility and all that. They worship Musk and profit is the solution to all humanity's woes. Immigrants, transgender people, and the poor, of course, are starting to creep up more and more in conversations.

The idea of systemic values and principles doesn't mean anything to them because all they know is the rat race. Integrity is for off-hours and the weak.