In the financier, we find the paragon of leveraged precariousness, the ideal to which all workers, no matter how humble, are instructed to aspire. They lead a form of life that strives towards maximum liquidity: one that has few durable bonds and is highly adaptable to profitable circumstances, able to respond with almost inhuman alacrity to the needs of the market. Ho’s research subjects report that it is rare to find finance workers over the age of 40, the vast majority either having been downsized or having succumbed to the personal costs of the frenetic lifestyle and work rhythm in terms of mental or physical health (2009, 97–107). Many take the “work ethic,” ethos and connections they cultivated in the financial realm into private and public management of non-financial firms and government bureaucracies, imposing their austere expectations on other workplaces and sectors.

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 187