Commentary
In the mid-1970s I was a struggling business and economics student. I paid for my tuition and personal expenses with physically demanding summer and part-time jobs and some student debt.
I dreamed of one day working on Canada’s version of Wall Street, which was located in Toronto at the corner of King and Bay streets. That dream came true in the spring of 1980 when the Dominion Bond Rating Service hired me as a junior analyst. Four of the five big Canadian banks occupied the corners of King and Bay in their impressive skyscrapers. A block away were the golden towers of Canada’s largest financial institution, the Royal Bank of Canada. A book published in 1982 was named “Towers of Gold, Feet of Clay,” a reference to the fact the two RBC towers literally have a thin layer of gold coating their windows….