[shrnky]

Make sure you read the original article here: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWE4YmE2YjhmMzgzODJ...

Having nothing to do with Wall Street myself, I actually agreed with the theme of the anonymous letter.

The underlying theme being:

"We are super competitive and you are not. What do you think will happen if we are forced to compete against you?"

I agree with Motely Fool that they have a skewed picture of the average american and could use some humility, but their original point still remains.

[cstross]

"We are super competitive and you are not. What do you think will happen if we are forced to compete against you?"

Counterpoint: How many jobs have you held that were purely competitive, rather than cooperative?

Pure competition may work for high level athletes in individual sports, or for sociopaths trying to claw their way to the top of a dogpile of thieves -- in zero-sum or negative-sum games where the only thing that counts is winning.

But in most walks of life, being too competitive is a liability.

Real life is seldom a zero-sum game, and the serious business of creating wealth and adding value is usually a positive-sum game. Cooperation rules, and the Wall Street Wanker's anonymous nastygram is merely the bitter complaint of a sociopath in an industry that's long overdue for external regulation.

[pasbesoin]

Yes.

I haven't read the Motley Fool post yet, but I read some days back the email I'm sure it's referring to.

Dear WS prick: The rest of the world realizes you have to cooperate in order to get substantive things done, e.g. running a modern society. Who do you think built and supplies your green-tinted ivory tower?

With the attitude expressed in the email, that blowhard wouldn't last a week in the positions he (I'm presuming) describes.

[jbooth]

The theme is a joke though. If finance people want to wait tables at a diner on the overnight shift, they can be my guest. Fewer of them to cause trouble while creating nothing.

[pasbesoin]

It might be an educational experience to have a job where your income is actually based on providing real service to your customers. (And where the matter of who are your customers, is clearly defined.)

[jpr]

Being super competitive isn't any good if you aren't competent to do anything that produces actual value.