“Destroyed my last bank” isn’t great resume fodder. I would imagine they’re doing the jobs they do because they either can’t afford to retire, or do not want to retire. I think no one wants to destroy their careers. I do find it fascinating that bankers are one of the few professions that if you go bankrupt the public opinion is no torture is sufficient for the principals.
I think it's any career in which your bad decisions have the potential to harm millions of people, whether you're a bank executive or a rail freight executive hauling huge amounts of poisonous chemicals through residential neighborhoods.
The difference is that in banking specifically, the regulations seem to have some amount of teeth, so it's tantalizing to see executives receiving any material consequences at all.
Meanwhile I don't see the Norfolk Southern shareholders losing money or their executives losing their jobs. The incident is barely visible in Norfolk Southern stock prices.
Well don’t forget they didn’t do anything criminal and in a normal turn of events it would have been a note in the quarterly disclosures. The bank run wasn’t a necessity to happen, and I don’t know how culpable they are for it. Certainly they could have done their jobs better and hedged interest rates etc.
Also remember in banking a large percent of your annual compensation is in deferred compensation and often with a long clawback period. These folks could have stood to lose something like 5 years or more of their total compensation. They’re not billionaires, and they’re not likely all that rich (just a wee rich). This will hurt them a lot. Maybe not as much as a kick in the balls but this isn’t a no-op as many people seem to think. It’s enough that no one will look at this with “ooo I should do that” intent for sure.
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