"I got a great education from Baruch and learned a great deal about Finance, but feel that Financial market is purely a gambling in more organized form."
Financial markets are gambling in a more organized form. Only in this arena you gamble with other people's money. Think about it. When traders they a position they call it "taking a bet". All you're doing is betting. Betting on spread movements, interest rates, etc.
I wouldn't lose faith in finance as a whole. From my short four years in the industry I've learned that you just have to realize that this industry attracts certain personality types that you have to deal with (i.e. greedy, cut-throat, pompous @$$es with enormous egos that think they know it all). It's just part of package.
Working on Wall Street is pretty much no different than working in Hollywood. You have to be very tough and thick-skinned to survive. It's dog eat dog and if you want a successful career you just have to play the game. If you only have a love and interest in finance in general then maybe academia is a better choice. I say this because most people in the industry aren't in it because this stuff fascinates them. They're in it for the money. To sum up this point, my first day in an analyst program at a major firm, finance was described as "how really smart people find ways to take money from really dumb people." So, there is an entirely different attitude on the inside. However, note that this is not the case at every firm on the Street.
As far as PhDs and geniuses that were unable to save the economy from the meltdown, no one really saw this coming and if they did they turned a blind eye to it. The quants and PhDs created the models; but, it was hubris and greed that caused the meltdown. Unfortunately, the people that created the models weren't always the ones making the key management and investment decisions.
Just my thoughts.
"It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another. "
"A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place."
And let's not forget . . .
"GREED IS GOOD!"
--The sad thing is that some people, not all, in the financial services industry have lived by these words and this is why we have the mess that we have today.
