>Think about it, if you're an investment banker, what else can you do?

You can read a balance sheet, research an industry, make a presentation to sell something expensive, and work 80 hours a week at something no matter how tedious.

There's got to be some demand for those skills.

What does "research an industry" mean, tho'? It doesn't mean anything about how to do stuff in that industry. It means knowing that if the price of oil goes up, sell your airline stock. It's an open secret in finance that when an analyst says "buy" he means "hold" and when he said "hold" he means "sell SELL SELL". I'm not clear where the value-add is there.

Tell you who the major players are and how they differ. Estimate a value function for the equity of firms in that industry. Find out how large the market is, how it has changed over time, and how it differs across countries. Research the regulations that effect the industry and give a concise explanation of which rules are normally constraining and which rules can be worked around. Find out what companies have been bought or sold in the sector, who has been doing the buying, and who has the balance sheet to do more deals in the near future.

Sounds like someone who'd be ideally suited... to working in an investment bank!

Yeah, maybe. Might be useful in internal management and strategy divisions of large firms, too. It would probably be good to have an ex-investment banker somewhere in the high level management of your firm.