To be fair, so is the third one. At least lawyers give advice that spans a broader range than "fire people to goose short-term profits". :D

"When they said elite, banks, law firms, and consulting business did not come to mind. The first two I consider them as leeches."

OK, but then they look upon the HN readers as fungible headcount that can be outsourced. Different strokes for different folks - and the more you understand the rules of other's games the better you do.

I'm quite sure you're just trolling but I'm curious to know why you think the first two are leeches but not the third.

> I'm quite sure you're just trolling but I'm curious to know why you think the first two are leeches but not the third.

You're by definition a leech when instead of being allowed to go bankrupt you're feeding on other people's money (so called "Government support").

That's not how banking got started back in the 15th-16th century, I never read of the Genoa bankers for example asking Philip II "hey, why don't you let us rob you of your South America gold?", as far as I know it was the other way round (Philip II screwing the Genoese bankers). But then again, back in the day we didn't have main-stream media Keynes-ian supporters saying things like "if we dont' give our money to support the banks the whole system would come crumbling down".