Last week, Harvard President Drew Faust sent out a university-wide email detailing to what extent the school of swank would be impacted by the global economic crisis. In short, Harvard "has weathered many storms" (read: "has lined their pockets well") but will suffer some set-backs in coming months. The fortune few will ride this one out with some paycuts and constraints. According to Dr. Faust:

Harvard is not invulnerable to the seismic financial shocks in the larger world. Our own economic landscape has been significantly altered. We will need to plan and act in ways that reflect that reality, to assure that we continue to advance our priorities for teaching, research, and service.

Thank God: Harvard is going to focus on teaching and research again. For a second, it looked like the nation's oldest institute of higher learning just enabled psychopaths and racial profilers. The announcement from President Faust, Larry Summer's replacement in Massachusetts Hall, sounds less like a policy shift than it does a PR stunt. Just 6 weeks ago, the Harvard Management Corporation (HMC), a bunch of suits who control the fate of the universe—err, the endowment—announced 8.6% growth on Harvard's already gargantuan $36.9 billion portfolio as Standard & Poor's lost 3.6%.  Break out the $100-bill-scented tissues.

While the next Dear "John Harvard" letter from the HMC isn't due until next summer, Harvard shows no signs of tightening the belt so far.  In her letter, President Faust emboldened the college's commitment to providing full rides to students whose families earn less than $60,000 per year. Meanwhile, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government just shelled out $10 million for a program to train emerging leaders from developing countries. [Insert: "Not so evil after all" comment here.]

Read Faust's letter in full along with some sob-stories about poor, jobless HBS grads after the break.

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Once upon a time Andrew Lahde was a hedge fund whiz kid famous for turning the subprime housing crisis into 1000% gains for his investors. Last week he confirmed everyone's fear of a rapidly approaching Hedge Fund Apocalypse (or species-wide bankruptcy of the soul, at least) by sending out the most glorious 2AM break-up letter of our time, a two-page "I quit" rant to his associates and investors. It includes damning words about privileged fools whose trust funds now line his wallet:

I was in this game for the money. The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not wothy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America.

Contemplation on the nature of capitalism, advice for government reform, and a paean to marijuana (which explains a lot):

Ah, the female. The evil female plant — marijuana. It gets you high, it makes you laugh, it does not produce a hangover. Unlike alcohol, it does not result in bar fights or wife beating. So why is this innocuous plant illegal? [...] This policy is ludicrous. It has surely contributed to our dependency on foreign energy sources.

Basically, this is the clearest signal possible that everyone with wealth and/or employment in hedge funds should bail immediately. Choice blogsphere commentary and The Complete and Unabridged Andrew Lahde Goodbye Letter, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Amid all the hoopla about the vice presidential debate, you may have noticed that the Dow tanked again yesterday. Wait, you didn't notice? You were too busy picturing Sarah Palin running naked through the Alaskan wilderness? Well, the Dow dropped around 350 points--in other words, we're back to Monday. Things are looking bleak. But believe it or not, not everyone on Wall Street is going to be fired. Ron, a pseudonymous Ivy grad working at Citibank as an analyst explains why he's confident:

No stop it. I'm not the least bit afraid. They would never replace a citi banker with one from WB (Wachovia Bank). Today, during interviews, when they rejected a kid, they joked that he was "a BofA kind of guy." And BofA (Bank of America) is better than WB.

The class of 09' is done. They can kiss their banking/trading careers goodbye. Let's just say [unnamed bulge bracket i-bank] analyst class this yr was around 70 kids. In 07, it was around 130 kids. This yr (09') I predict around 30-40 kids at most.

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