Will Public Perception of Wall Street Alter Candidates' Care

With most of the difficult work involved in reforming the U.S. health care system behind them, Democrats can now focus on Big Issue #2: financial regulatory reform.

Reform of the financial/banking system had been slid to the back burner but is now shaping up to be a, if not the major rallying point come mid-term elections this fall—which coincides with the sweet spot of big investment banks' campus recruiting season. This means that some of these firms will likely be spending serious amounts of time, energy and money to attempt to dispel rumors and set records straight and artificially sweeten the not-so-sweet past when they descend upon undergraduate and MBA institutions after Labor Day.

Currently, as shown in a recent Bloomberg poll, the American people are none to happy with the big Wall Street firms, with 57 percent looking "unfavorably" or "very unfavorably" at the country's largest financial institutions and about 66 percent looking unfavorably at the executives who run said firms. (It was also shown that two-thirds of Americans have an unsavory view of Congress.)

While banks' PR outfits and insiders work overtime this fall, would-be investment bankers from some of the top schools across the country (aka candidates for some of the highest-paying entry-level jobs in the land) will be faced with some difficult questions, including this one: Should I go into banking at all?

With public perception of the banking industry at a low, if not all-time low, it's likely that this year decisions like Goldman or McKinsey, Morgan Stanley or BCG, and J.P. Morgan or Bain will be a whole lot easier than they had been in the past.