| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
 Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2008 10:13 pm Post subject: American Express Becomes a Bank... |
 |
|
Interesting times...
| Quote: |
NEW YORK -- Seeking shelter amid a global credit crunch and consumer spending slowdown, American Express announced Monday it is becoming a bank.
The Federal Reserve, using emergency power to act swiftly, granted approval for AmEx and American Express Travel Related Services to become bank holding companies... |
CNN Reports |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
sojourner1
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Location: Where meggi swim and 2 wheeled tractors go sput put chug alugg pug pug
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2008 10:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Converting to bank holding companies is just a loop hole to get federal funds to save it's arse while it lays off 7000 more employees in the finance industry. This is the 3rd financial company to convert and many others have or are laying off thousands more. Finance has been letting go of people for 2 years now and was quite a stagnant job market for quite some time now.
Finance and business has to be the worst college major to pick. Oh, how I kick my self in the nutz for picking business, (engineering rocks) but I wanted an interdisciplinary study to be the jack of trades since that's what gave many in leadership positions the skills and experience to get the top job later on in their careers by starting a company.
Now I would say to anyone wanting to study business, take a trade or other major like engineering and study business on the side. If you can handle the complex business and finance maths (advanced calculus) in a bachelor of science program at a large university, then you can handle engineering. Finance is said to be one of the toughest fields of study and career to take on. The extreme academic challenge is not worth it. What a bomb out of an industry that's suppose to reward greatly those who can muster the analytic skills and qualifications. Be a damned scientist or engineer instead since there's jobs out there for them. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2008 11:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| sojourner1 wrote: |
Finance is said to be one of the toughest fields of study and career to take on. |
Really? All the econ grad students I used to hang out with took business school classes for an easy A. Most of the good finance quants I knew had studied statistics or physics. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Bigfeet
Joined: 29 May 2008
Location: Grrrrr.....
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:53 am Post subject: |
|
|
| A lot of Americans took business majors in college because they want to go into the business world and make big bucks. The sciences were too hard for too little reward for them. I bet a lot of them are starting to regret that decision now, and it'll only get worse. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 1:59 am Post subject: |
|
|
| huffdaddy wrote: |
| sojourner1 wrote: |
Finance is said to be one of the toughest fields of study and career to take on. |
Really? All the econ grad students I used to hang out with took business school classes for an easy A. Most of the good finance quants I knew had studied statistics or physics. |
I'm taking 2 grad level finance courses right now, and took one last spring. Definitely helps to have a good grasp of stats.
Basically finance is a hard career to take on because you are trying to beat the market, which is almost impossible to do in the long term. Nearly all mutual funds do worse than index funds. That's the biggest lesson I learned from my first finance class: mutual funds are worthless in the long run. Better to just put your money in a S&P 500 index fund. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 6:39 am Post subject: |
|
|
| sojourner1 wrote: |
| Now I would say to anyone wanting to study business, take a trade or other major like engineering and study business on the side. |
100% agree - my B.A. is in Business as well.
PLUS, if someone IS interested in Business, it is the MBA you need...not the BA...the BA is worthless, and not necessary to get into a MBA program even. The MBA program is designed for those who studied something besides business, but sadly the degree you need to get hired for anything good in business! (Combined with a good B.A. in engineering, and you'd be set).
As another aside...all of my business classes were designed around CORPORATE structure, making me completely clueless on the details of actually running what could be my own business! Funny how that works with business degrees! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:24 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Amex became a bank in Canada back in the mid 1990s. I think Brian Mulroney made 'em good and then when Mulroney left office, he was put on the board of directors. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:25 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| huffdaddy wrote: |
| sojourner1 wrote: |
Finance is said to be one of the toughest fields of study and career to take on. |
Really? All the econ grad students I used to hang out with took business school classes for an easy A. Most of the good finance quants I knew had studied statistics or physics. |
My GF was studying for her CA and finance was the one thing that gave her nightmares. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:28 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| bucheon bum wrote: |
| huffdaddy wrote: |
| sojourner1 wrote: |
Finance is said to be one of the toughest fields of study and career to take on. |
Really? All the econ grad students I used to hang out with took business school classes for an easy A. Most of the good finance quants I knew had studied statistics or physics. |
I'm taking 2 grad level finance courses right now, and took one last spring. Definitely helps to have a good grasp of stats.
Basically finance is a hard career to take on because you are trying to beat the market, which is almost impossible to do in the long term. Nearly all mutual funds do worse than index funds. That's the biggest lesson I learned from my first finance class: mutual funds are worthless in the long run. Better to just put your money in a S&P 500 index fund. |
Mutual funds are a suboptimal choice for tax reasons alone. *returns to tax code* (groan) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:42 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| The credit card industry is going to have an epic and horrendous crises mid next year. AA can call itself a bank all it wants. AA's dominant business is lending money to hundreds of millions of people without collateral. Tens of millions are unlikely to pay it back. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
|
| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 6:00 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| mises wrote: |
| The credit card industry is going to have an epic and horrendous crises mid next year. AA can call itself a bank all it wants. AA's dominant business is lending money to hundreds of millions of people without collateral. Tens of millions are unlikely to pay it back. |
Of course that's why credit card companies justify very high interest rates. They're lending out unsecured credit. I was actually disappointed a number of years ago when the credit card companies got the bankruptcy laws changed in the USA and made sure they got in front of the line to get back what was owed them. They should not have it both ways. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
