The Financial Times’ Lex asks:

Where are tomorrow’s masters of the universe? Red in tooth-and-claw investment banks are pulling out all the stops to woo graduates. Nomura of Japan, arguably the world’s most socialist nation, is resorting to fat paycheques. Graduates are reportedly being offered $75,000, triple the average starting pay in Japan. US and European banks grumble about a dearth of applicants. In the UK, state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland and the about-to-be-defunct Financial Services Authority are among graduates’ top picks. Nearly twice as many graduates plan to apply to charities as to investment banks, according to High Fliers Research. Pinning graduates’ disenchantment with banking to the recent crisis seems a tad disingenuous: today’s bright young things simply have less fire in their bellies. Half of those surveyed by Orange, the mobile network, put happiness as their number one work requirement; 43 per cent wanted “nice colleagues”. Bring back Gordon Gekko.

Not many signs of happiness being students’ number one work requirement at Columbia Business School where I sense Gordon Gekko remains a revered role model for many.