Goldman Sachs Employee Displays Minute Clue of Humanity

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aristide1
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Goldman Sachs Employee Displays Minute Clue of Humanity

Post by aristide1 » Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:52 am


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Re: Goldman Sacs Employee Displays Minute Clue of Humanity

Post by NeilBlanchard » Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:04 am

Here is the complete op ed piece written by Greg Smith:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opini ... sachs.html

Here's the most salient portion:
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.

It astounds me how little senior management gets a basic truth: If clients don’t trust you they will eventually stop doing business with you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are.

These days, the most common question I get from junior analysts about derivatives is, “How much money did we make off the client?” It bothers me every time I hear it, because it is a clear reflection of what they are observing from their leaders about the way they should behave. Now project 10 years into the future: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly in the corner of the room hearing about “muppets,” “ripping eyeballs out” and “getting paid” doesn’t exactly turn into a model citizen.

When I was a first-year analyst I didn’t know where the bathroom was, or how to tie my shoelaces. I was taught to be concerned with learning the ropes, finding out what a derivative was, understanding finance, getting to know our clients and what motivated them, learning how they defined success and what we could do to help them get there.

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Re: Goldman Sachs Employee Displays Minute Clue of Humanity

Post by m0002a » Thu Mar 15, 2012 10:27 am

I don't have any sympathy for Wall Streeter's in general (actually this guy worked in the UK office) and I believe some of them should be in jail (the US president has chosen instead to try and put Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Lance Armstrong in jail), nor any sympathy for Goldman Sachs in particular, but it is interesting that this guy was a Goldman Sachs vice president selling toxic derivatives to clients before, during, and after the recent fiancial crisis. About one third of Goldman employees have the title of vice president (I guess similar to inflated titles in other banks), but he was making $500K per year. I saw at least one report that suggested that he was pissed for not being promoted, despite being a vice president of the company for the last six years (but this cannot be proven that was his motivation).

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Re: Goldman Sachs Employee Displays Minute Clue of Humanity

Post by frenchie » Thu Mar 15, 2012 12:14 pm

Took him that long to realize all that... sad... All those Benjamins in front of his eyes must have altered his judgment... I guess it's better later than never...
I'm very glad to be part of a very small local credit union. I actually celebrated the last check I ever wrote to one of those big banking firms, and I'll do my best to never do business with them ever again.

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Re: Goldman Sachs Employee Displays Minute Clue of Humanity

Post by aristide1 » Thu Mar 15, 2012 12:33 pm

I'm guessing this is the most accurate statement about Goldman Sacs, because it comes from a customer with no ax to grind.
Others were less surprised. One Goldman client who spoke on the condition of anonymity called the letter “naïve,” saying that the firm had been trading against its clients for years. “Come on, that is what they do and they are good traders, so I do business with them.”
From an IT prespective working near Wall St all I saw of GS and their "prestige" was that they demanded 50% more hours and responsibilities for only 30% more pay. This way 2 people do the work of 3, and the company only pays out benefits for 2 people. In addition only base pay is part of the defind pension plan, so 2 people doing three people's worth of work and getting bonuses don't get anything extra in the long run.

Something for nothing. Nowhere to be found in the definition of capitalism.

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