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Old 02-05-2011, 08:01 PM
California California is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2011
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Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
California, I have been reading your posts and you have come across as sincere and forthright, to the extent of even registering a User Name to support your authenticity.
Thanks for the support. I'm not trying to force my opinions on anyone or win any sort of internet debate, and I really have nothing to gain personally from convincing people one way or another. In fact, it would probably be to my benefit if more people disagree with my views (and thus won't even bother looking / going for the opportunities that do exist). Nonetheless, my motive is to give another point of view to those who are looking for something other than 'Singapore sucks, go overseas if you wanna do well'. At the very least, I hope people will at least consider what I'm saying and take it as food for thought.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
Unfortunately, sincere and forthright doesn't mean right. You may mean the best but be completely wrong. It also appears that he has stretched the definition of equivalence between Singapore and California since his situation involves rich parents with lots of assets. Anyone who disagrees has a right to express it here. California is a young man feeling his way around his first job. He may have headed the wrong way, but he seems happy - at least for now.
I agree, having good motives doesn't mean I am right. I never claimed that my views and opinions were the absolute, unquestionable truth that encompassed every person and situation. If I ever gave anyone that impression then I sincerely apologize - I've tried my best to make it clear that I am only speaking from the experiences of myself, friends, and family as well as qualify almost every statement that I make with caveats that it does not apply to everyone. I welcome contrary opinions and believe that the readers (as well as myself) will benefit from the differing viewpoints rather than blindly believing what a single person says.

On a personal note, I never based any of my opinions or advice around socio-economic status. That bit about cars / money / etc was only in response to a very specific statement that only concerned me and my situation, I didn't leverage this aspect to support what I've said about anything else. I agree that I am young and feeling my way around my first (second?) job - I'm not an expert or know-it-all by any means. Perhaps I went the wrong way, perhaps I made the right choice - there is really no way of telling. And if I ever cease to be happy with the decisions I have made, it's never too late to turn back.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
I'm glad you mostly agree. However on the above point, I'd also suggest that a S$6K employee of a Singapore-based investment bank isn't able to judge whether people in NY make many many times more than in Singapore....

Singaporeans can make it in bulge bracket investment banks. Singaporeans head major divisions of BB investment banks. If you think this way, you are unlikely to make it.
First off, my firm is not Singapore based nor is it an investment bank. It's a totally global financial company (in fact, the HQ is in New York) who is the commanding leader in it's field by a huge margin. But that really isn't the point..

Secondly, I'm not stating my views from the perspective of a "S$6k employee of a Singapore-based investment bank" (as above, I'm not). I'm stating my views as someone who has numerous friends and family who are working in the top finance / consulting / etc companies in New York/London/Singapore/etc in addition to having been offered some of these positions and salaries personally. On top of direct class/course mates from university, the big schools have amazing alumni networks all around the world in all different industries, and we all talk and share our experiences and numbers to give each other a better perspective. Lastly, I've read sufficient books / articles / sites on the different positions, companies, industries, and locations (glassdoor.com is a pretty nifty one) to ensure that I'm not making naive and unqualified claims.

Let's take 'many many times' to equal 3x or more (though it's very debate-able whether or not 3 even counts as 'many many', I'd think it would be something more like 10x). Let's also assume that the good financial companies pay around $40-50k for their average fresh-grad analyst hires. This would imply their counterparts (average new analyst hires in good financial companies) in in New York make $120-150k? (for the sake of simplicity, we let tax and exchange rate cancel out, though this is in favor of the US). I think $120-150k is a pretty far stretch for an average fresh grad, from past experiences and interactions the number should be closer to $60-80k. Of course, you may be referring to the higher levels, but the disparity still isn't as large (again, for people of comparable positions / background / etc), unless you want to go to the CEO / etc level, which is very hard to compare and isn't too relevant for the vast majority of people. I understand we have made a lot of assumptions here (almost all have been in favor of your claim), so if you would like to counter with your own examples / assumptions then by all means, please do (I want to add that I am not looking to argue with you, or anyone else for that matter. I'm simply opening the floor to a constructive debate where we can state our opinions in an educational manner. As previously stated, this will be to the benefit of the reader and as well as give ourselves an opportunity to understand other points of view).

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