Basel group launches highbrow “Go for the Dough” campaign aimed at undergrads

NEW YORK – Citing overwhelming success with their three-year campaign to increase the visibility of financial professionals, the Basel-based Centre for International Finance Certification (CIFC) announced this week that it will begin similar programs aimed at undergraduate students considering careers in finance. Called “Wall Street Simply Isn’t Saturated Enough Yet,” the program will involve a multi-pronged cross-sectional look at the finance, insurance, legal, and tax industries, as well as reasons to stop pursuing impractical career paths in the arts and sciences “like Mom and Dad told you to.”

“This is a considerable step forward for us,” said Genevieve Soubriet, the executive director of the program’s offices in Lausanne, Switzerland. “For the entirety of their early lives, young people are told to follow their dreams, to make their lives extraordinary and superlative, to get out there and change the world. It’s high time we stopped giving them such imbalanced counsel, and just told them to make some serious bank.”

The program, which will be piloted in continental Europe this summer before a Q4 2014 release at US universities, will commence with a variety of breakout sessions piloted by The Apprentice’s Donald Trump, former GE CEO Jack Welch, and Arturo Pinzotti, a distant descendant of the 16^th-century statesman and author Niccolo Machiavelli. Titles include: 

• “Becoming the Billionaire’s Toady: Reflections on the Soul-Crushing but Financially Rewarding Indentured Servitude of Family Office Personnel”
• “Hedge Fund Performance Reviews: How to Minimize Physical Violence and Other Aberrant Investor Behavior”
• “New Adventures in MS Office: How to Turn Emerging Market Power Grids on and off at Your Leisure with Excel (and what it will do for Your Fund’s NAV) 

Joel Redmond, a CNY financial planner and author of the not-yet-galactically-acclaimed book Tradecraft: What Spymasters Can Teach us About Investing, said he wasn’t surprised about the CIFC’s efforts. “We live in an uncertain world,” Redmond said. “Take Family Guy – I never thought a show with such surgical ‘80s humor would make it into a fifth season, usurping even The Simpsons as a comedy iconoclast,” he said. “I suppose there have been current events that have indicated uncertainty as well, of course.”

Redmond, who mentioned that he posts a weblog also aimed at would-be students of finance called The Bricklebrit Algorithm, mentioned a slightly different goal. “I remember Einstein said ‘things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler,’” Redmond said. “Fortunately, anyone reading this blog would agree no jury in the world would ever convict me of making anything in finance simple. I view myself as a solemn steward of the mysteries of finance, sort of like those 9^th century inquisitors who would tie people to the stake if they found prayer books in their room. I think sometimes scarcity gets a bad rap,” he said.

The book Tradecraft is available here: www.unlimitedpublishing.com/redmond

The Bricklebrit Algorithm is here: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/thebricklebritalgorithm

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Basel-based Commission to promote financial field more aggressively, create “twenty-minute designation”

NEW YORK – The Centre for International Finance Certification (CIFC) made a follow-up announcement to its decision last week to enact legislation changing the way members of the accounting and legal professions present their credentials. Commenting on the story is Representative Steven Bacon (D-NY), who has been among the legislation’s most ardent and active proponents.

“I think we all know that Dodd-Frank is making it a smaller world for those who are doing wrong,” Bacon said. “Now we have something that rewards those on the other side of the coin – those financial advisors who are taking the high road,” he said.

Bacon, himself a former institutional trader and private wealth advisor with the storied white-shoe Berne-based Lilliman and Sneer, confirmed the council has indeed saved the best for last: new regs concerning the designations of traditional stockbrokers and financial planners. “There are a few more options in these realms of finance than in other professions, though the choices are a bit anemic,” he said. “One article said there are thousands of designations, though at last count I saw only sixteen hundred or so.” (Bacon was referring to this article: http://www.mainstreet.com/article/money/investing/who-s-who-guide-financial-advisers) “What we’re planning to do here is create opportunity for those who just don’t have the time commitment to study for the Series 7, the Certified Financial Planner Exam, or the various life insurance and investment curricula out there.”

The solution, Bacon said, was deceptively simple: create the twenty-minute designation. “We’re calling it the financial desi-byte,” he said. “We saw immediately that, for example, the pass rates for the Chartered Financial Analyst exams were very low – about 40% or so for the first two levels, and 50% for the third level,” he said. “No financial-advising rank-and-filer is going to get through those tests and still remember to put their pants on zipper-in-front every morning. So instead, why not become a OOQG (On-again Off-again Quant Gal) or a QBDC (Quasi-Bond Duration Cruncher)? We’ve got quite a few others in the mix from this curriculum – it’s very robust,” he said. Additional desi-bytes:

SVLR – Single-Variable Linear Regressor

AAEISP – Assistant to the Assistant of the Editor of the Investment Policy Statement

ACBD, 8 – knows Almost as much as a Central Banker’s 8-year-old Daughter

CMFS – Certified Master of Finance-Speak

KNER – Knows there’s Not Enough money for Retirement

“It strikes me as a bit of overkill,” said Joel Redmond, author of the recently published Tradecraft: What Spymasters Can Teach us About Investing. “It’s kind of like making wives and fathers put ‘Diaper Ace One,’ ‘Youth Hockey Transport Director,’ or ‘Allowance Procurement VP’ after their names on their stationery at work.” 

Bacon agreed that not every aspect of the new legislation is positive, albeit differently. “We’ve had to set a limit of 50 designations per advisor in client and prospect communications,” Bacon said. “It seemed prudent to create some scarcity around these credentials.”

The book Tradecraft is available here: www.unlimitedpublishing.com/redmond.

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International certification council meets, unilaterally agrees world lacks sufficient financial designations

NEW YORK – Citing an alarming trend towards “transparency, clarity and lucidity” among worldwide financial professional ranking institutions, the Basel-based Centre for International Finance Certification (CIFC) today approved preliminary plans to double the count of the world’s financial designations by the year 2020. The move, which was met with unilateral approval among regulators, financial concerns, and securities attorneys alike, is seen as yet another surge in the overarching trend towards what one lawmaker calls “edufinandemonium.”

“Edufinandemonium is basically the art of making financial education slightly more nuanced than it currently is,” Rep. Steven Bacon (D-NY) said. “For example, you have someone who already is a Certified Public Accountant. Under the current regime, this person is only required to use her certification credential in communications with clients and prospective clients: Samantha Knox, CPA. Under the new proposed rule, all who pass the Certified Public Accountancy exam will automatically be granted an additional designation of RSTP – Really Smart Tax Person. We’re also going to require that those with bachelor’s degrees will list BA/BS, and those with masters’ degrees list those as well. Thus, in New York State, we’ve gone from Miss Samantha Knox, CPA, to Miss Samantha Knox, CPA, RSTP, MS (Fin), BS (Fin.). You see? A client meeting for the first time with the first professional might not feel nearly as confident as one meeting with the second.”

According to Bacon, the legislation is estimated to create an instantaneous 4.7 million new designations in the state of New York in its first year alone. Nor, he says, is this the only benefit. “We estimate the amount of additional fees these professionals are going to be able to generate at about $60 billion in the first five years or so,” he said. “Of course, half of that or so will be offset by the incremental costs of printing on both sides of their business cards.” But accountants aren’t the only ones expected to benefit from CIFC’s new legislation. According to Bacon, licensed attorneys also stand to gain from the new regs. “Most attorneys use JD or Esq. after their names – respectively, teacher of law, juris doctor, or Esquire.” (Bacon, himself a 1997 magna cum laude graduate of Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, said he would text its meaning to this reporter later on.) “Since lawyers presumably have undergraduate degrees, we’re going to list those, but we thought of an additional hierarchical calculus,” he said. “You know how in law school, the brightest students generally end up editing the law review or clerking for some prominent judge? From now on, any attorney with that kind of accomplishment is going to be styled IMC – iure malum canem. In English, it means ‘Wicked Righteous Law Dog,’ he said. “Anyone with a 3.5 GPA or above presumably made dean’s list for one semester, and the worldwide designation for these talented professionals will be LO – legis observare, ‘Lawyer to Watch,’ he said. The designations are also cumulative, Bacon added. “This is expected to dramatically change the public’s perception of that hardworking Ivy League attorney who just isn’t able to bill $1,000 an hour on a ‘Gemini Jones, JD.’ But “Gemini M. Jones, JD, Esq., IMC, LO, LLM, BA (Eng.); see website for additional designations?” I can physically hear the client billfolds opening wider,” Bacon said.

Area financial professionals had mixed emotions about the project. “ I’m not sure I’m ready for this – I don’t understand all of the current designations,” said Joel Redmond, a private bank financial planner in Central New York. “Parents already have bumper stickers that say ‘My grade schooler is smarter and prettier than your grade schooler.’ These extra designations are like making those bumper stickers windshield-sized,” he said. “I mean, don’t you think these kids just want to play dodgeball?” 

Redmond is the author of the recently-published Tradecraft: What Spymasters Can teach us About Investing, released on Cyber Monday 2013. He himself said he’ll be affected by the new legislation as well.

“I’m a Certified Financial PlannerÔ professional, so I’d still use that designation,” Redmond said. “But I looked over the laws, and there’s a provision that hasn’t really been widely announced. They actually want you to use designations for unrelated jobs you’ve had in times past. Now, I’ve been a cook, waiter, janitor, parking lot attendant, mobile phone merchant, editor, photographer, reporter, goatherd, and at least ten other things,” Redmond said. “I’m thinking of hiring a stunt double who’s only had one or two jobs to play me in client interactions.”

The book Tradecraft is available here: www.unlimitedpublishing.com/redmond.

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