The Top 10 Ways Sharks and Bankers Are Alike

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Published: Friday, 17 Aug 2012 | 4:31 PM ET
Cindy Perman By: | CNBC.com Commentary Editor

It’s Shark Week on cable TV, and that means any hour of the day you will find some sort of shark programming and learn all sorts of AMAZING shark facts.

Image Source | Getty Images

One show on Nat Geo Wild(where they actually do Shark Fest, not Shark Week, which is owned by the Discovery Channel), called “Shark Attack Experiment LIVE,” dropped a team of five people in seriously shark-infested waters to test out the theories of what attracts sharks. Do sharks react to splashing? They dropped a swimmer in the water and made her splash around. Do they respond to bright colors? They dropped a couple of ladies in the water in brightly colored bikinis to find out.

After several death-defying dives, where you were sure you were going to see someone get eaten by a shark, the team concluded that sharks were attracted to splashing, noise, yellow swimsuits and shiny objects. On another show, they showed a baby shark eating some of its siblings — in the womb. That’s right, some sharks make their first kill BEFORE birth.

“That sounds like the first-year analyst program at an i-bank!” a former trader, who has found life after Wall Street as the global head of sales for a software firm, joked.

Actually, now that you mention it, bankers ARE a lot like sharks. So, in honor of Shark Week and bankers everywhere, here are the top 10 ways that sharks and bankers are alike:

10. Sharks and bankers can smell blood in the water.

9. Both sharks and bankers have been prominently featured in major motion pictures as ruthless killing machines.

8. Both sharks and bankers have that dull, lifeless, “thousand-yard stare” in their eyes when they are going for the kill.

7. Both sharks and bankers are good at the kill shot, but they’re happy to let their victims do most of the work.

6. Sharks are natural-born killers and some make their first kill in the womb, before birth — much like first-year analysts.

5. Both sharks and bankers are drawn to yellow bikinis.

4. Sharks, like bankers, aren’t territorial — they see the entire ocean as their territory.

3. Both sharks and bankers sleep differently than normal people, which is not very much and with at least one eye open! (Sharks sleep with both open.)

2. Sharks never used to think of humans as a food source but, like bankers, they’ve learned through the stupidity of humans that humans are food. (In the case of sharks, it’s because of dive groups all over the world that feed sharks to make sure there’s a good shark sighting on the trip.)

1. Given all the layoffs on Wall Street, bankers, like sharks, are an endangered species!

To be fair, there is at least ONE way they're not alike — people LOVE sharks!

Did we miss one? Drop your comments about how sharks and bankers are alike in the box below.

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It's Shark Week on cable TV and with all the amazing shark facts we've learned, it's made us realize how much sharks and bankers are alike. Here's the top 10 list.


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