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Goldman Responds To Ethics Waiver Query
As promised, we bring you Goldman's response to our earlier query on whether any ethics waivers have been used in the prior five years by executive or non-executive employees of GS. It appears all of Goldman's workers have conducted themselves with the utmost ethical standards (at least from their perspective) and no waivers have been requested. To wit:
Tyler:
Thanks for your message. The ethics code, including waiver provision, was required under SarbOx. No waivers have been requested.
Regards / Lucas
This only leaves former GS CEO Hank Paulson as a prominent user of an ethical waiver, when employed by the Dept of Treasury as we wrote previously, specifically in the context of bailing out Goldman Sachs.
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Scum bags.
LvP himself answered. Unbelievable. He does that .... well, never.
And that too within a day of the original request and on a Sunday. They are probably watching ZH like a hawk and have hired interns to monitor the site.
BTW. Talking about Sunday, when every last little Goldmanite is probably referencing ZH, do we know if GS is still blocking ZH on it's internal systems?
I could not care less about their official line on ZH; we know, and they know we know they have probably 10 people who read ZH as a part of what they do for GS, and probably 75% of Goldmanites frequent this site on a daily basis. Not all of them are SOBs; some are actually OK and quite pleasant to interact with [even if said interaction is via the net].
+1 Cheeky you just kill me. You really had me going there for a moment.
What.
Its not like I'm a GS "made man". I just know a couple of them. And those guys and gals are not what most think they are. Actually they are as pissed about 90% of the shit as much as we are. It would be stupid to paint every GS employee with the same brush. I also exchange e-mails with a couple of former LEH guys [and some of them were quite high in the hierarchy of the firm] and also find them to be OK.
Now, The Firm is a completely other set of things.
Well said. I dont expect many people here that wish a cold hard death to all financiers to understand this, but painting a firm in a certain way doesn't mean every single person at the firm is worthy of the insults. Thats a very closed-minded view.
Hey Zero; I left you a response under the CMBS article. Its fairly oversimplified, but I can send you a pdf which is more detailed; if you want to.
I was thinking of writing an article about CDS pricing methodology and what changed in the past 2 years in regards to that, but I found the topic to be over-specialized and the theme might not be accessible to understanding of many who read ZH [ thats not meant to be an insult; but I dont know how many people actually read Hull&White, Turnbull, how many people know of the intricacies of "probabilistic model" and "no-arbitrage model" and the differentiations between the two.]
Thank you good sir, replied.
And besides the original paper from JPM posted here a while back which discusses pricing CDS, i don't think anything of the sort re changes in methodology was ever posted here. Indeed, while it might be attractive to a thinner range of viewers, im sure those of us who would read it would learn a thing or two even if we're familiar with the area, and others would perhaps dabble in it as well. Those that aren't familiar; well, the best place to learn about something is to be taught either by yourself or through someone. My interest for finance started in college but i don't think i'd frequent ZH (let alone read and participate in the comments) if it wasn't for my continued interest.
Another contribution by you would certainly be read and studied.
You are right. It is the "hive" that is the problem, not necessarily its individual components. These guys are slaves for the most part, most of them hate their jobs to death and would kill their bosses given the chance.
The problem is, most of them live high on the hog and can never, ever afford to leave the "hive", Muffy needs those new Manolos, Jimmy needs to pay for Harvard, and the poor fucker that works for the hive needs to buy hookers and blow now and then to stay sane.
It's a horrible place to be.
Couldn't they jump the GS ship for the MMS- they get the same bennies. I hear there's an opening up top now...CB
CB ,there is always good people inside a bad firm,it doesn't need a brainier to understand that.
But tell them to work for us, people, they have to find many solid proofs to bring down the Goldman forever.
May be they are already doing it ?
Any idea what they see when try look in the mirror?
God
"I could not care less about their official line on ZH; we know, and they know we know they have probably 10 people who read ZH as a part of what they do for GS, and probably 75% of Goldmanites frequent this site on a daily basis. Not all of them are SOBs; some are actually OK and quite pleasant to interact with [even if said interaction is via the net]."
Thanks for the insight. I'm glad to hear that ZH IS being monitored - and somewhat comforted that not everyone at GS is corrupt. The idea that so many people within the ranks of such a big corpororation, being rotten to the core, is almost too much to think about right now. Especially being that I am right in the middle of one of Max Brook's "zombie" books.
Its not being "monitored". Stop being paranoid. Its just being often read. Monitoring implies potential action against that what is monitored. And there is nothing of sort here.
ok.
This was posted on The Big Picture blog and probably explains why they are responding to an anonymous blogger.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/06/gs-rep-still-worse-than-bp/
Brings a whole new meaning to the term Administrative assistant
I would hire interns to monitor stuff if I could. Damned restraining order(s) and wife and whatnot.
Yeah, AND he calls Tyler by "his" first name, and uses his own in the signature..........
Uh oh, is this the first step in ZH capture :-( !!!!!!!
So there it is.....
If it wasn't for SarBox, there would be No Employee Ethics Manual, No Code of Ethics. Period.
What a Wonderful Impact the Legisalation has had on Goldman's Global Business Model.
Astounding in it's Breadth, Depth and Impact, isn't it?
Oh, to have a recording of his mental thoughts as he wrote that hahaha. Good to see GS is on the up and up.
Wow.I will bet 100 tons of gold that response used the waiver.
Lulz, Cistercian. That was good. I used to be an internal auditor at a small NYSE-traded utility. I implemented the SarbOx a/k/a SOX404 plan for our company. SOX requires that the CEO and CFO personally attest to the system of controls for the company. Shit rolls downhill and so the CEO and CFO, fearing this awesome responsbility (but not the executive pay and bennies), require their lieutenants to sign a document that they have not knowledge of ethical problems. And then the lieutenants have their minions sign it and so on. I was supposed to sign it, but I told them I wouldn't. Guess what? Rather than to have me on record refusing to state that everything was on the ethcial up and up, my management decided my attestation was no longer important. All it takes is a few brave souls.
P.S. Fuck Lucas van Praag and fuck GS. Everyone of them. You work there, you work for the squid. Contrary to what Cheeky says, I have no truck for the enablers in this world. What? I'm suppossed to have sympathy for the guard who dropped the gas tablets at Auchwitz? Good and decent people do not associate with evil. It's that simple.
Wow. Are these guys good? Let's learn something from them and maybe we can manipulate the system, too.
What's the lesson here? Help write the legislation so you can insert three words that make the law as useless as the SEC.
The Blowhards on the Hill get their graft, make idiotic assurances to the proletariat (which we buy), and nothing ever changes.
Once again, what is the downside of lying? I am not saying anyone is lying, but humor me. What's the downside? There is no downside. You have absolutely nothing to go on other than his word that no one requested a waiver. As far as anyone knows, the bathroom stalls have waivers for toilet paper.
Writing "ethics" in the same sentence with "goldman sachs" should result in one turning into a pillar of salt.
LOL!! GS: We don't need no steeeenking ethics. We rule the freakin planet while doing God's work.
All Street execs waive any ethics as a precondition of employment.
Fuckin A!
"F**** Eh!"
What are you talking about? Here at GS,
"Ethics is Job #1" and
"We Answer to a Higher Authority"
Tyler, what does it mean, "No waivers have been requested."
Is a request for waiver required or can it be an edict from above?
Pure bullshit response.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/7825162/Barack-Obama-requests-50-billion-in-emergency-funding-from-Congress.html
Bugger me sideways - is this TRUE?? It's all comin' true - jus' like the prophesehh saaihd....
But they said we were recovering! They f***king SAID! etc...
Daaaamm. Tyler has some pull to get a response on Sunday.
Tyler - In Sept 2008 former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank "the mole" Paulson got a White House conflict of interest waiver as U.S. Secretary of Treasury, not as FRBNY employee. Goldman Sachs already had the FRBNY covered with Stephen "no conflict of interest" Friedman as Chairman of the Board of NY Fed, and with William Dudley, Geithner's understudy and since Jan 2009 Presiendet and CEO FRBNY.
http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/orgchart/dudley.html
Stephen "no conflict of interest" Friedman was Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as well as Goldman Sachs Board member at the time the NY Fed bailed out Goldman Sachs through AIG, as outlined in the Rep Darrell Issa's Oct 30, 2009 letter to NY Fed:
"It is also disturbing that, at the time this secret deal was made, FRBNY Chairman Stephen Friedman, a member of the board of Goldman Sachs, purchased more than 50,000 shares of Goldman Sachs before knowledge of the FRBNY’s bailout of Goldman Sachs and other AIG counterparties became public knowledge. According to news reports, this transaction has earned Mr. Friedman over $5 million in profit."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24908829/Letter-from-Rep-Darrell-Issa-to-N-Y-F...
Did the FRBNY give Stephen a waiver to engage in insider trading?
1. Hank Paulson jumped from Goldman Sachs CEO to U.S. Treasury Secretary, and when a golden opportunity presented itself proceeded to wipe out Goldman Sachs competitors Bear Stearns and Lehman, to force BoA to swallow a crippled Merrill Lynch, to save GS from billions in counterparty risk at Fannie, Freddie, and AIG, and to allow the Goldman Sachs group to control key positions at the U.S. Treasury and to advise him on how best to enrich Goldman Sachs.
2. Stephen Friedman, then Chairman of the Board of NY Fed, and at same time, a Goldman Sachs Director and big stockholder of Goldman Sachs, claimed he had no conflict of interest in regulating Goldman Sachs.
3. Geithner, then NY Fed President, requested a waiver for the conflict of interest of Goldman Sachs Director Stephen Friedman continuing as Chairman of the Board of NY Fed that regulates Goldman Sachs.
4. Geithner and Friedman insured that William Dudley, former Goldman Sachs executive, got Geithner's job of NY Fed President. Stephen "no conflict of interest" Friedman was chairman of the search committee, and Geithner lobbied the NY Fed to appoint Dudley-do-right-by-Goldman-Sachs as NY Fed President.
5. Current NY Fed President Dudley, former Goldman Sachs executive, was part of the FRBNY organization that destroyed Goldman Sachs competitors Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and bailed out of Goldman Sachs thru AIG.
6. U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner could not be expected to investigate and prosecute NY Federal Reserve Geithner for the dirty deals he made with AIG, Bear Stearns/J.P.Morgan, Goldman Sachs, etc.
7. U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson could not be expected to investigate and prosecute Goldman Sachs CEO Paulson.
8. Geithner and Paulson have screaming conflicts of interest which should have disqualifed both from serving as U.S. Secretary of Treasury.
You forgot the huge tax break that Bazooka Paulson got from his stock sale -- gotta prevent that conflict of interest don't ya know.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/paulson-files-to-sell-500-mln-in-goldma...
Oh, so "government service" is just another way to evade taxes on your personal holdings you stole while in "private" practice. Where are the guillotines? Where are the public lynchings?
Paulson should have paid the gov't for the "privilege" of this public service job.
...and don't forget the best part...
Granting us bank status overnight! Suckas!!!
Laughing all the way to the bank, er, ourselves!!!
I have only done a little digging yet, but it seems to me that Sarbox requires the the diclsoure of a waiver permission, if waivers exists, not the creation of one as GS language seems to imply. The law seems to require the creation of an ethics code, then if there are any waivers created, they must be disclosed.
TThe other thing of note is that there seems to be a large loophole where the management of conflicts of interest are left to self policing. Big hole for the truck.
It all hinges on the "control environment" for which the compliance testing is very subjective. Do you have an ethics policy? Yes. Check. Do you have an ethics hotline? Yes. Check. At the little utility where I worked, one of the tests (not performed by me) was to determine if there had ever been "management override" of the control environment. The auditor conducting the testing found that, yes, there had been. This began a months-long journey into the existential question of really what "management override" is. They coined a new and slightly different phrase and the activity which was originally label an "override" suddenly become something else that was entirely OK. So, yeah, you could drive a convoy through that bitch.
I've always watched the "ethics" policies as not : "do good" but rather "HERE ARE THE EDGES" and then here is the gray zone--then "go forth and do your job".
- Ned
How about giving the man some credit. Regardless of what we think of the firm, the man responded promptly and in a courteous, businesslike fashion. Everything else still stands, but the man gave Tyler and the site respect.
Oh, another document required by the government that means nothing. Hardly unusual.
After all, we need a new version of Microsoft Word for some reason, huh?
DOW chart warns of a rally :
http://stockmarket618.wordpress.com
http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/latest-market-outlook-1
LUCAS "TWISTED TWEETER":
http://williambanzai7.blogspot.com/2010/03/goldman-pr-genius-on-twitter....
I am sure when Paulson did all his noble work to save the Squid and destroy the competition, that he was sure he wouldn't get away with it. He would have to take one for the team, and be cared for in the hereafter by the Squidopolis. I bet he wakes up in the middle of the night sweating in disbelef that he is still unindicted ............. 'I know they're comin' a gitme, where are they?'