No young pretender likes to be told by the older generation that things were tougher in their day and that the new crop isn’t fit to fill their boots. Add in the fact that they’re quants, who are not particularly famed for their social skills, and you might have a diplomatic incident.

Jesper Andreasen, head of quantitative for Danske Bank, has given an interview to Risk Magazine (via Alphaville) and it seems he’s not particularly enamoured with the latest round of applicants. The education system doesn’t prepare them for any problems or questions they haven’t seen before, he says.

“I think the problem is due to fundamental flaws in our education system: it is like the current generation has been indoctrinated into not performing any independent thinking at all. In their small minds, knowledge and understanding can be skipped because the answer to any problem can be found on the internet or in some book…”

You think that’s bad? How about: ““It is like a generation of kids that wouldn’t be able to do something sensible with a box of Lego without the building instructions.”

OK, there’s more: “The current generation is going to have to work until they’re 70 years old, because they can’t hand off the top jobs to any of these muppets coming through.”

It could be, as Damiano Brigo, professor of finance at Kings College London, that the best minds are no longer attracted to banking and instead are choosing to stay in academia.

Meanwhile:

The creator of Citigroup says retail and investment banking should be separated (Bloomberg)

Former J.P Morgan chief executive says this would be a very bad idea (Wall Street Journal)

All three executives who carved up Lehman Brothers have now lost their jobs (Deal Journal)

The financiers paying between $25-75k to attend a Mitt Romney fundraising dinner in London (Financial News)

“Globally, investment banks are rejigging their businesses to be able to provide a return that meets their cost of capital and clearly Nomura is nowhere near that.” (Financial Times)

Christopher Mikosh, a former MD at Goldman Sachs, is launching a new credit hedge fund in Asia (Reuters)

Merrill Lynch has hired seven Morgan Stanley advisers (Reuters)

Jerry del Missier left Barclays with £8.75m (Times)