Yesterday's blog on Mr Smith goes to Wall Street, was very much about delusion. How long can I overlook the bad stuff; how long can I kid myself that I didn't hear or see that, how long can I hang in so that I am financially secure before I decide to save myself?
Some people are not deluded about what is occurring around them on Wall Street and almost any other industry you wish to name. They just keep going either perversely or intentionally as it suits their purposes.
Today Bloomberg has published from the blogs of two of Goldman's Sach's ex employees. Both women. And both having a view about Mr Smith. And as noted, both ex Goldman Sach.
One : "who worked at Goldman Sachs for 14 years, wrote that she’s heard from “many people” in the past few years that the firm is emphasizing profits over character." In the old days that used to be called trasactional banking. That is focus on the transaction and the profit. The converse in management terms is relationship banking; whereby the relationship with the client [up to a point] is paramount relative to gouging profits from the transaction. Transactional banking has been around for decades.
The second: "“By tossing a verbal hand grenade on his way out the door, he sullied the reputations of the vast majority of the people at the firm who work and live by the highest possible professional standards every single day,” and “delighted” to become a Goldman Sachs client when she started an asset-management firm, XXXXXX Capital, in 1995."
Now I wish to return to delusion. I have been writing about that quite a bit on this blog site. Indeed, its by-line is "Looking through the noise to the real issues". Subjects such as how we always believe governments when they say they will honour their debt; legislating for privacy then building vast banks of data about our lives in such intrinsic depth it is impossible to be your own person; about carbon and climate change legislation - how much they care yet license companies to explore for more oil etc when we are already past peak carbon; and the peak food and water. Actually, please just read through my list of blogs. It is all there.
No, what I would like to point out that in the week that Bloomberg publishes the above piece by two women from Wall Street, it also published research that illustrates that women on Wall Street have the largest pay gap to males of any industry anywhere (in 2010, but it would be consistent over time). It reports "The six jobs with the largest gender gap in pay and at least 10,000 men and 10,000 women were in the Wall Street-heavy financial sector. " As low as 55c in the $1 paid to men.
Now lets return to the topic of delusion.....whoops we are still there.
I mean this behaviour, and all the other aspects of gross conduct on Wall Street has been around for a long time. We are all born in the megalomanic belief that the world only existed from the moment we were born, like a psycho bubble fantasy. But we are meant to grow out of that as our eyes adjust to longer vision (bonding with more than the people exactly 12 inches from our noses) at a few weeks old, and we eventually live long enough to go to school and uni, where the whole universe and its history becomes available.
Were you tempted to pick up the book City Boy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile? About the UK Wall Street equivalent? How about Liars Poker? That's three decades for you.
I do not have to write my experience of investment banking, it has already been written, albeit a slight step above the standards reflected therein: Lord of the Flies by Nobel winner, William Golding.
Let's not delude ourselves. It really is like that.
Some people are not deluded about what is occurring around them on Wall Street and almost any other industry you wish to name. They just keep going either perversely or intentionally as it suits their purposes.
Today Bloomberg has published from the blogs of two of Goldman's Sach's ex employees. Both women. And both having a view about Mr Smith. And as noted, both ex Goldman Sach.
One : "who worked at Goldman Sachs for 14 years, wrote that she’s heard from “many people” in the past few years that the firm is emphasizing profits over character." In the old days that used to be called trasactional banking. That is focus on the transaction and the profit. The converse in management terms is relationship banking; whereby the relationship with the client [up to a point] is paramount relative to gouging profits from the transaction. Transactional banking has been around for decades.
The second: "“By tossing a verbal hand grenade on his way out the door, he sullied the reputations of the vast majority of the people at the firm who work and live by the highest possible professional standards every single day,” and “delighted” to become a Goldman Sachs client when she started an asset-management firm, XXXXXX Capital, in 1995."
Now I wish to return to delusion. I have been writing about that quite a bit on this blog site. Indeed, its by-line is "Looking through the noise to the real issues". Subjects such as how we always believe governments when they say they will honour their debt; legislating for privacy then building vast banks of data about our lives in such intrinsic depth it is impossible to be your own person; about carbon and climate change legislation - how much they care yet license companies to explore for more oil etc when we are already past peak carbon; and the peak food and water. Actually, please just read through my list of blogs. It is all there.
No, what I would like to point out that in the week that Bloomberg publishes the above piece by two women from Wall Street, it also published research that illustrates that women on Wall Street have the largest pay gap to males of any industry anywhere (in 2010, but it would be consistent over time). It reports "The six jobs with the largest gender gap in pay and at least 10,000 men and 10,000 women were in the Wall Street-heavy financial sector. " As low as 55c in the $1 paid to men.
Now lets return to the topic of delusion.....whoops we are still there.
I mean this behaviour, and all the other aspects of gross conduct on Wall Street has been around for a long time. We are all born in the megalomanic belief that the world only existed from the moment we were born, like a psycho bubble fantasy. But we are meant to grow out of that as our eyes adjust to longer vision (bonding with more than the people exactly 12 inches from our noses) at a few weeks old, and we eventually live long enough to go to school and uni, where the whole universe and its history becomes available.
Were you tempted to pick up the book City Boy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile? About the UK Wall Street equivalent? How about Liars Poker? That's three decades for you.
I do not have to write my experience of investment banking, it has already been written, albeit a slight step above the standards reflected therein: Lord of the Flies by Nobel winner, William Golding.
Let's not delude ourselves. It really is like that.
No comments:
Post a Comment