Wall Street becomes the target of scorn

Monday was the last day of Iris Chau’s 11-year career at JPMorgan Chase and she says there’s a lot she’ll miss about the job: her colleagues, her paycheck and her role managing a technical support team. But one thing she won’t miss about JPMorgan is telling people that she works there.

“For a long time, it was kind of glamorous and I had friends who’d ask me ‘Can you get me a job there?’ ” says Chau, 35, who was part of a recent round of layoffs at the firm’s Manhattan headquarters. A few weeks ago, she mentioned her work to a photographer she’d met through a friend. “And he looks at me and says, ‘Oh, you’re one of them.’ ”

Nobody in the investment banking world is expecting pity, or even a sympathetic ear, these days. But when Wall Street talks about the collapse, it talks about life on Wall Street and the industry’s uncomfortable new role as national pariah.

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Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, * International News & Commentary, America/U.S.A., Economy, Stock Market