scc13

I like the egalitarian message you are promoting, but the fact is having an Ivy League (or a top 15-20 school) education does have more than "absolutely no impact on your probability of success". Take a look at compensation studies from those schools versus second or third tier schools.

Chinese fluency is growing in importance

"a constraint is placed on the industry's ability to earn and pay out profits" - this makes no sense.

So, if the firm makes money, where should it go?

I hate to debate "fuckmatt", but no, the people at the top don't all have a "high capacity for greed, manipulation, and rationalization". For Senior Partners, MDs, whatever, many of them legitimately enjoy their job, the people and the challenge of the profession. Because they happen to also get compensated quite well for it doesn't hurt.

Too many folks, including the OP, have this view of the Gordon Gecko of Wall Street. Sadly, that isn't really the case. More often than not, nowadays, they are relationship managers. They have relationships with the CEOs/CFOs of major companies and try and pitch that company to use various aspects of the bank's business (M&A, Corp Fin, etc.).

When there is fault, you can almost always point to the proprietary trading desk - often the risk that they are taking is more than the firm's leadership is aware of or comfortable with.

Yes. Most people, if told they would make 5x the compensation at an investment bank versus at a regulator, they would take the banking job all day.