rant · moment 7 of 27
Finance as a Religion: Why People Die Chasing Billions
from Eurovision & Jerry Seinfeld's Pop-Tart Movie | The Tim Dillon Show #392 · #392
6 min
Tim expands on the idea that Wall Street and finance function like a religion of sacrifice, comparing bankers who work themselves to death to soldiers, athletes, and struggling comedians who sacrifice health and relationships for success.
- Tim explains that finance debates aren't new, and when someone dies pursuing wealth, it's sad but inevitable—comparing it to military service.
- Making the kind of money this finance worker wanted carries inherent risk, like being a spy or elite athlete—jobs that strain your body and mind.
- Elite athletes pushing their bodies to the limit sometimes collapse and die, as do marathon runners in peak condition—the cost of extreme performance.
- Wall Street is where type A people go to make exorbitant sums through extraction, not invention—staying low to the ground sucking money out of the system.
- Every few years an intern on Wall Street can't take it, but Tim argues nobody forced them into the job when they could be a teacher in Minnesota instead.
- Finance should be treated as a religion—people devote inordinate time to something unseen and ritually pursue the god of a billion dollars.
- These finance guys want to be billionaires and sacrifice their physical and emotional well-being to get there, similar to how comedians sacrifice everything early on.
- If you fail as a comedian after a decade in bars, people just call you a bum with nothing to show for your time.