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talkpoliticsTODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.
It doesn't help that there is momentum on the right to denounce the crisis as caused by 'too much regulation', when from the horse's own mouth you hear the opposite.
It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off.Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail. Even after the S.E.C., Fabulous Fab, Abacus, God’s work, Carl Levin, Vampire Squids? No humility? I mean, come on. Integrity? It is eroding. I don’t know of any illegal behavior, but will people push the envelope and pitch lucrative and complicated products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or the ones most directly aligned with the client’s goals? Absolutely. Every day, in fact.
It's apparent at this point that damage mitigation we conducted in 2008/9 was not enough. We need to make these people more accountable and protect investors and consumers. What can we do to stop these corrupt business practices? Is it even possible anymore, in this political climate, to reform our banking system?
The important thing to note is this isn't really about some specific culture at Goldman Sachs- it's about capitalism itself, taken to its extreme it's nothing but exploitation.
link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs.html
It doesn't help that there is momentum on the right to denounce the crisis as caused by 'too much regulation', when from the horse's own mouth you hear the opposite.
It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off.Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail. Even after the S.E.C., Fabulous Fab, Abacus, God’s work, Carl Levin, Vampire Squids? No humility? I mean, come on. Integrity? It is eroding. I don’t know of any illegal behavior, but will people push the envelope and pitch lucrative and complicated products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or the ones most directly aligned with the client’s goals? Absolutely. Every day, in fact.
It's apparent at this point that damage mitigation we conducted in 2008/9 was not enough. We need to make these people more accountable and protect investors and consumers. What can we do to stop these corrupt business practices? Is it even possible anymore, in this political climate, to reform our banking system?
The important thing to note is this isn't really about some specific culture at Goldman Sachs- it's about capitalism itself, taken to its extreme it's nothing but exploitation.
link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs.html
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Date: 15/3/12 21:56 (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 16/3/12 06:52 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/3/12 11:38 (UTC)Now I'm all for pushing government out of our affairs, but to leave the corporations we have in place to do as they please strikes me as just as bad, because it doesn't deal with the core problems of capitalism such as gross inequalities, exploitation of workers etc. Just a thought.