Wall Street has, since its origins, attracted every kind of hustler and unsavory character. It has never been a place welcoming to the intellectuals and the well mannered. Certainly one doesn't need a college degree to participate in the casino we call Wall Street. In fact a majority of ET participants consider formal education beyond the eighth grade a waste of time and money. As evidence, I submit to you all the threads that have as their central theme: "College attendance as a useless activity."
Curiously, the crooks that run the major investment banks and Hedge Funds (or did before they went to Prison) found it to their advantage to hire the well breed, from the best schools, as fast talking, but well schooled, salesmen, because their own cigar chomping manner was ineffective in fleecing inherited money from the well breed mavens of Beacon Hill. Much later these same crooks (the ones not caught yet) got the idea that they needed to automate their fleecing operations; thus, they found it necessary to hire the quants,i.e, the guys with --or is it "wid" -- Ph.D.s in physics.
At the bottom of the Wall Street echelon are the street hustlers, pimps and their whores, and a notch below them the Traders. ET is for Traders, and wannabe traders... An entertaining place to hang out while you are waiting for the market to come to you.
I like the way Baron lets "freedom of expression" reign supreme on this site. Kudos to the Baron.