Rum, The Lash and Sodomy: The Senate Social Thread and Amateur Naval History Hour

Well if you are leaving government service why the hell stick around in Canberra? I lived there for years and leaving was the best thing I ever did. Boring place, good restaurants and traffic flow though. If you're going to play in the financial world then Sydney is the place to be no question. It's only a bad time to enter the financial services world if you're a mortgage broker or working for a non bank home loan lender. They're hurting pretty bad.

Welcome back to Sydney!

 

Thankee, kind sir.

You know, reading the JC Focus Group, I'm glad the Senate ones were never a case of inmates running the asylum. Makes me proud of this little corner of the boards, it does.

ES

 

The focus group was an interesting experience. I was invited to participate by virtue of the fact that I had never participated in the JCC and thus had no idea what was going on. At all.

E_S that's a common career change in the U.S. I know a few people who worked at the state department or worked as congressional staffers and then went into investment banking, became brokers or certified financial analyists. One of the staffers I know in particular felt that Wall Street was a bit low key after being on the Hill for four years.

 

Well, I think time has come for me Jabba. I've become ruthlessly pragmatic - I've had to be - and very good at the policy formulation/implementation/analysis side of my job. I was previously much stronger with the people side, to the point where I'd be sent to meetings without any expertise ont he subject matter because I could liaise so well. I lifted my game on the written side, found myself a little bored and more interested in finance.

Having seen though how the public service works - my colleagues in the international section of DIAC are amazingly brilliant minds, and I've learned a lot about the world and how it works. As I said, I lost something along the way, namely any causes, but when you consider that we don't deal with widgets of output or units of currency, but with people, you have to be professional and objective or you'll just burn out emotionally.

I have a promising package set up with Macquarie Bank, which is Australia's leading investment bank and a global brand now. Should be interesting to shift.

ES

 

I hope that sector stays revved up for a while longer on your side of the globe. Here the mood is glum, almost as bad in Chicago as I'm sure it is in Manhattan. Even at Goldman where they had an outlandishly good year in 07 they basically wrote the bonus checks at the same time they were drawing up the layoff plans.

 

As everyone can see, the Million Colors game is here.

The topics are going to include history and politics and such, so if you thought about it before, Souderwan has the sign up list.

The Senate hasn't had a contest like this for a while, but the last one was quite fun...

 

Today I got a call from some snooty Austrialian who works for the same firm as ES.

 

Yahoo Serious?

I hear he's been quite busy with his music lately.

 

Here you all go:
http://sinfest.net/comikaze/comics/2008-04-22.gif