I must confess I did not read the op-ed by Greg Smith published in the New York Times on March 14, 2012 titled “Why I am Leaving Goldman Sachs” until this morning. I did not pay much attention to it because of my basic lack of respect for most in the investment banking sector anyway. I did not think he had much to say that would add to what needs to be the discourse relative to investing banking.
As I watched MSNBC’s Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) on The Daily Rundown I got really mad at CNBC’s Becky Quick (@beckyquickcnbc) for simply dismissing Greg Smith as a disgruntled employee. In fact the entire panel seemed pained to really go after Goldman Sachs as a representation of a systemic evil that is our financial sector.
I just read the piece and must say Becky Quick seemed more correct than not that Greg Smith was but a disgruntled employee that likely got fed up with the culture and his job. Could it be that he realized that he was making a lot of money and providing no real value to society? I give him kudos if he finally came to that realization.
That said his article seemed more self-serving than anything else. He leaves a company who is partially responsible for our economic collapse in a fanfare. His notoriety for simply leaving a company that does nothing but indirectly pilfer the middle class through its governmental connections will likely earn him a book deal that will garner much more than the $500,000 he makes a year. He will be paid to recount the ills and evils of Goldman Sachs which he was willingly part of. And for that he will be celebrated.
In my days of being more religious than not I recall the story of the prodigal son. When the prodigal son returns to the fold he gets the accolades yet the good son is not celebrated. We see it in our culture over and over again. We celebrate the recovered alcoholic, the recovered drug addict, and the recovered from every bad deed. Yet, for those that did it all right celebration seems far in between.
Greg Smith is no hero. He worked for Goldman Sachs for over 12 years. He was executive director and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Irrespective of how these financial companies define or defend derivatives, every American should understand that derivatives are very destructive financial instruments whose sole purpose is to make money for those that sell it. When many went bad our tax dollars made these companies whole as they further profited and we plunged into a depression (I mean the so called deep recession).
Instead of focusing on Greg Smith, our talking heads should be focused on more profound questions for the American people. Questions like why is our money controlled by private banks instead of “we the people”. Why do we not tightly regulate all of the investment banking sector to ensure that all pay is salaried as opposed to percentage of deals based which lead to corruption. These guys have proven that they are not fit to control our financial system. After-all do remember that these guys produce nothing. They just move money.
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