Well, that's a bit surreal..

[xthread]

I've been watching Mad Men for the first time recently.
It's extremely good.
I finished the first season a few weeks ago, and watched about half of the second season yesterday.
In between, I read most of Liar's Poker, about bond trading, Salomon Brothers, and the invention of interest-rate swaps. It was extremely surreal, because in many respects, it seemed like the world of Sterling Cooper and the world of Salomon Brothers just weren't very far away from each other.

Comments

[mizarchivist]

I adore Mad Men. I came to it a bit late (last year) and decided to give it a shot after so many people couldn't shut up about it. Mind you, the last season, not a word from folks- I guess they assume those who know, know.

Do you watch Dexter?

[shaix.livejournal.com]

Wow. Mainlining Mad Men is HARD CORE. I tip my invisible hat, sir. :)

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Mad Men is set when zillions of Americans were entering the consumer middle class, sales of mass-marketed consumer products was rising rapidly, and those companies would pay any price for ads to help them capture that money. So advertising was a go-go industry with plenty of money for everyone. People who worked then say that the truth was even more extreme, especially regarding the amount of drinking.

So it's not surprising that the various points where the finance industry invents new ways to make multi-billions of dollars it becomes a similar orgy.

Looking back, I realize that the electronics/computer/Internet industry went through a similar boom, now called "high tech", and the boom is done. But most of those people were engineers and didn't live interesting lives, despite the money.