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GoLDMaN SaCHs 4-1-9

Submitted by williambanzai7 on 03/14/2012 07:13 -0400

WB7: We all talk about this constantly. We are mocked by many on the Street. Are we mad fools?

Dear friends at Zero Hedge, consider this your day of total and absolute Goldman vindication. If you think the problem is unique to Goldman, think again.

Mad yes, fools no.

WHY I AM LEAVING GOLDMAN SACHS (Excerpt)

How did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.

What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm’s “axes,” which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b) “Hunt Elephants.” In English: get your clients — some of whom are sophisticated, and some of whom aren’t — to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like selling my clients a product that is wrong for them. c) Find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.

Today, many of these leaders display a Goldman Sachs culture quotient of exactly zero percent. I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.

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.

Greg Smith executive director and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, NYT OpEd on his resignation today.

Full NYT Link: Here

Goldman sure knows how to screw
It's what they're paid billions to do
Although there's a chart
It's more a black art
How they've managed to rape me and you

The Limerick King

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