<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div class="grid_page"><div class="layout_centered_2col_main"><div class="ans_page_question_header"><div id="zpopzc"><div class="QuestionArea"><div id="ypGePe"><div class="question_text_edit"><h1><span id="jZHOXB"><a class="question_link" href="https://www.quora.com/Whats-something-that-is-common-knowledge-at-your-workplace-but-would-be-mind-blowing-to-the-rest-of-us" action_mousedown="QuestionLinkClickthrough" id="__w2_S59KmaH_link"><span class="question_text"><span class="rendered_qtext">What's something that is common knowledge at your workplace, but would be mind-blowing to the rest of us?</span></span></a></span></h1></div></div><div id="PjFAgF"><div class="question_details"><div class="question_details_text inline_editor_content"><span class="rendered_qtext">See also follow-up question: <span class="qlink_container"><a href="https://www.quora.com/What-is-commonly-known-or-believed-in-one-country-which-would-be-mind-blowing-to-foreigners">What is commonly known (or believed) in one country, which would be mind-blowing to foreigners?</a></span></span></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="author_header"><h3><div id="fGHeRQ"><div class="AnswerPageHeader AnswerHeader ContentHeader"><div class="photo_info_layout size_small"><div class="photo_wrapper"><div class="photo"><div id="LCVdVP"><span class="photo_tooltip" id="__w2_FPvAp0T_link"><a href="https://www.quora.com/profile/Joseph-Wang-9" id="__w2_C5Rar4g_link"><img style="opacity: 1;" class="profile_photo_img" src="https://qsf.ec.quoracdn.net/-images.new_grid.profile_pic_default_small.pngc9950ec98bd539ba.png" alt="Joseph Wang" height="50" width="50"></a><span id="QDXeBc"></span></span></div></div></div><div class="info_wrapper"><div class="info"><span class="feed_item_answer_user"><span id="xigBKe"><a class="user" href="https://www.quora.com/profile/Joseph-Wang-9" action_mousedown="UserLinkClickthrough" id="__w2_tEo2xGm_link">Joseph Wang</a><span class="IdentitySig ActorNameSig IdentityNameSig" id="__w2_FrXRGGH_bio">, <span id="__w2_FrXRGGH_link"><span class="IdentitySig ActorNameSig IdentityNameSig" id="__w2_FrXRGGH_sig"><span class="expanded_q_text" id="__w2_XQUm6pT_text_snip"><span id="__w2_XQUm6pT_text_snip_content"><span class="rendered_qtext">Chief Scientist, Bitquant Research</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><div id="bGxpKK"><div class="CredibilityFacts"><span class="meta_num">4k</span> Views<span class="bullet"> • </span><a class="user" href="https://www.quora.com/profile/Joseph-Wang-9" action_mousedown="UserLinkClickthrough" id="__w2_EDvKvm3_link">Joseph</a> has <a href="https://www.quora.com/profile/Joseph-Wang-9/answers/Work">30+ answers</a> in <a class="TopicNameLink HoverMenu topic_name" href="https://www.quora.com/topic/Work" target="" action_mousedown="TopicLinkClickthrough" id="__w2_E4rcVhF_link"><span class="name_text"><span id="zODSBQ"><span class="TopicNameSpan TopicName">Work</span></span></span></a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></h3></div><div id="PFQsFE"><a name="answer_4039251"></a><div class="Answer AnswerPageAnswer AnswerBase" id="__w2_sboWzbN_answer"><div><div id="__w2_sboWzbN_answer_content"><div id="CnIMxL"><div class="ExpandedQText ExpandedAnswer" id="__w2_qhMlWqf_expanded"><span class="rendered_qtext">From investment banking front office.....<br><br>*
Almost all of your money is in cyberspace and has no physical existence
at all. The process of printing money consists of someone at the
Federal Reserve typing numbers into a computer system. <br><br>* How
floor trading at the exchange no longer exists. Almost all trading is
done by computers. All those pictures you see of people screaming at
each other were taken years ago.<br><br>* What several tens of billions
of dollars looks like. They are just numbers in a badly designed
computer screen or Excel spreadsheet.<br><br>* What a market crash looks and sounds like. It's a lot of phones ringing.<br><br>* How no one on Wall Street knows (or cares) which direction the markets are going.<br><br>*
How anyone that does have any juicy information is legally forbidden
from discussing it, and therefore any information that you get is
probably not that juicy. In particular, anyone talking about finance on
television has been *specifically isolated* from any non-public
information, and *by law* can only talk about public information.<br><br>*
How damn close (i.e. two days at the most) the entire world came to
total economic collapse in 2008. By economic collapse, that your bank
account were just meaningless and worthless numbers. Imagine global
capitalism as a giant video game, and waking up one morning and seeing
"game over" at the ATM. Almost happened.<br><br>* How banks use other
people's money. The corollary of this is that the banks didn't get a
massive bailout. You got a massive bailout because they money that the
banks lost was yours.<br><br>* How BIG, banks are. Your typical US megabank employs about 200,000 people.<br><br>*
How lobbying and legislation works. On the one hand, politicians
aren't in the "pockets" of bankers. The lobbyist for a Wall Street bank
has to explain the banks position on legislation and regulation, and
the politician can and does say no. On the other hand, you or I would
not likely to be able to get a conversation with the politician, whereas
the bank would at least get listened to because they contributed money
to the politicians PAC.<br><br>* How banks don't care who is elected as
long as they get listened to. You'll find in the list of campaign
contributions that a major bank will contribute to *both* candidates in a
race. It's to get listened to no matter who gets elected. If you are
running for office and you have anything to do with banking, you will
get offered campaign contributions from the big banks. Typically
incumbents get more money, but it's common for both candidates to get
money. Banks are smart enough to know they can't swing an election.
The contribution is so that their phone calls get returned.<br><br>* How
bank employees appreciate lobbyists, because they make sure that the
bank doesn't get totally killed by the people with pitchforks.<br><br>*
How regulatory capture works. If you are a politician that needs some
information on how derivatives work, anyone that you talk to that knows
something about derivatives is likely to be working for a bank. Also,
if you are working on a 600 page bill on derivatives regulation, and you
talk to a bank, you are likely to find a team of lawyers that has been
reading the legislation for the last month, and can come up with some
suggestions on what needs to be done. If you talk to Occupy Wall
Street, you aren't.<br><br>* How paranoid and out of touch banks are with social media. <br><br>*
How people with banking experience usually have no particularly insight
as to how to invest your money. The person that sells you your car
probably has no particuarly knowledge about auto mechanics.<br><br>* How most people in the banking industry just put their own money in index ETF.<br><br>*
How many astrophysicists work on Wall Street. Your typical investment
bank has several dozen physics/math Ph.D.'s. And several thousand
computer programmers.<br><br>From cosmology and astrophysics ....<br><br>*
Most of cosmology is based on pretty simple physics. Once you get down
to say 10000 degree gas, the universe is just hot gas, and we know how
hot gas behaves<br><br>* It's easy to calculate the entire universe.
Once you assume that every part of the universe is more or less the same
as any other part, then the equations for calculating the universe
become extremely simple. Because of symmetry, it's easier to model the
entire universe than it is to say calculate the behavior of shower
curtain blowing in the wind. This is because of symmetry, because all
of the universe is basically the same, you can use a few numbers to
describe the entire universe. Because a shower curtain isn't symmetric,
you can't.</span><div id="shgaPC"><div class="ContentFooter AnswerFooter" id="__w2_NxT9Aft_content_footer"><span id="KMfsLG"><a class="answer_permalink" href="https://www.quora.com/Whats-something-that-is-common-knowledge-at-your-workplace-but-would-be-mind-blowing-to-the-rest-of-us/answer/Joseph-Wang-9" action_mousedown="AnswerPermalinkClickthrough" id="__w2_YFdUeDR_link">Written <span class="datetime" id="__w2_UlEeols_datespan">31 Jan 2014</span></a></span><span class="bullet"> • </span><a class="AnswerVoterListModalLink VoterListModalLink" href="https://www.quora.com/api/mobile_expanded_voter_list?type=answer&key=9bbbfACNB7F" id="__w2_DRNbGfj_modal_link">View Upvotes</a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>