I’ve admitted to geek adulation a few times here; the latest on the radar (though hardly new) is Michael Lewis:

Lewis: [Five years from now] …a job at Goldman Sachs is about as glamorous as a job at the Chase Manhattan Bank was in 1985 — it’s just not what the brightest sparks want to do. The neatest jobs in finance are venture capital and private equity, but they are smaller, niche jobs. Generally, the financial services sector shrinks quite a bit. There are many fewer people making, taking financial risks.

Greer: And so Michael, I know after Liar’s Poker, you had said that you hoped that “some bright kid, say at Ohio State University, who really wanted to be an oceanographer, would read my book, spurn the offer from Morgan Stanley and set out to sea.” So are we going to see more oceanographers?

Lewis: I think they are not even going to want to read my book. I think this era on Wall Street will have finally come to an end, and people will look at Liar’s Poker as a document from the distant past.

I wish we could sell CraigsList postings on eBay….:

BROKER TRAINEES WANTED FOR WALL STREET FIRM!!! (Financial District)
2008-12-03, 10:22AM EST
E1 Asset Management is a rapidly growing Wall Street firm with 175+ employees, excellent support staff and top of the line technology. US regulated (SEC, FINRA). We provide a safe home and a clean disclosure record to build and maintain your future business. We want to develop top producers for the long term. Ex-Mortgage, Insurance or Real Estate Sales professionals welcome. Excellent opportunity for recent college graduates! Must be authorized to work in the United States! Paid training & excellent “on the job” training. Send resumes to Rachel Ryu at rryu@e1am.com or call her today at 212.425.2670. Learn what it takes to survive and flourish on Wall Street. For more information about our company please visit our website at www.e1am.com

oops wrong soundbyte. I meant to say:

“Bailout.”

But….really?

U.S. Representative Jeb Hensarling (who hails from the one other state besides Michigan that causes an inordinate amount of grief to our nation*), latched onto the “bailout” bandwagon when he told (more grief) Fox News: “You wonder where bailout-mania will end.”

Mr. Hensarling said American automakers should bear responsibility for their failed operations. “They are producing high-cost products that consumers don’t want to buy. And so now we have Washington on the verge of giving them a bailout simply because we have all heard of them and they have high-priced lobbyists.”

Ok sorry: this is where I must now intervene…and for reasons beyond a feral need to defend my beleaguered hometown. Because, not only is the above statement simply untrue (consumers DO want to buy gas guzzlers when gas is cheap), but there are several things that differentiate the Big 3 (an admittedly nostalgic descriptor these days) automakers from the financial services firms. Namely, the automakers have**:

• high fixed costs for manufacturing
• a heavily unionized workforce that adds a prohibitive cost element and restricts competitiveness globally
• an extensive supply chain that impacts various elements of the economy (steel, textiles, electronics, manufacturing)
• environmental implications which have only recently been uncovered and require regulation…nearly one century after the industry structured itself without these considerations
• an aging labor demographic that, if abandoned by the existing pension commitments, stands to significantly…significantly drain the federal government’s social services

None of the above conditions apply to the Wall Street firms. And, none of the above conditions are remotely likely to be re-created in another industry any time soon. And as such, the moral hazard moniker being used to avoid aiding the Big 3 simply doesn’t stick here.

Oh, and isn’t the proposal on the table for the automakers just for about $25B of the (as of today) $700B+ in assistance funds? So if moral hazard is irrelevant and just 1/28 of the $ set aside thus far is all we’re talking about, what is the real story behind the lack of political will?

As much as I really wanted to get the hell out of Dodge (viva la double entendre) when I left the Great Lakes State, I sure don’t want it to be a total black star.

*and provides yet even more grief in his role as chair of the paradoxically-named Republican Study Committee.

** credit for this list goes in part to Salon poster Elephantman who provided much insight into the unique history & economics of the auto industry