Why I am leaving Goldman Sachs

[hipipol]

But..but..it's fun to have someone who works/worked for "the man" on the boards who can be threatened with expropriation! Don't be oppressing us with your demand for facts and common sense!

Ever had a job parasite?

 

[hipipol]

IT support is definitely in there, along with several quants/techies and I think an administrator or three. Sales also. They say the job is not much different to anywhere else, they just get paid shitloads to do it.

What do you do?
Are you blameless?

 

[hipipol]

It's the biggest criminal enterprise in history. You don't get off just because you're innocent - Enron's workers lost everything - jobs, pensions, health insurance. Why is finance any different?

The Guardian's banking blog has been running monologues by people who work in finance. Many of them say the job is much the same as in any other sector but they get paid three times as much (or more) because there's so much money swilling around.

Criminal enterprise mate. Good times are over. We'll go easy on you, but if you can't cough up the dough, we'll have yer house.

Oh Dear - has you teething ring slipped?
Seems that UNite hurned down a bribe for actually doir jobs for ten days -£800 aint enuff
Seems to me Every Fucker is greedy
Its all about access
Apply yerself to yer studies boy, self-righteousness might not be your only asset that way

 

[tommers]

I missed the bit when investment banks were supposed to have morals. Who knew? Surely the whole point of them is to make money? So they're making it for themselves rather than clients? Big shock.

Oh no the derivatives market went all selfish.

 

[HAL9000]

From New Scientist, 28 august 93, Feedback column:

"The National Westminster Bank admitted last month that it keeps
personal information about its customers-such as their political
affiliation-on computer. But now Computer Weekly reveals that a
financial institution, sadly unnamed, has gone one better and moved
into the realm of personal abuse.
The institution decided to mailshot 2000 of its richest customers,
inviting them to buy extra services. One of its computer programmers
wrote a program to search through its databases and select its
customers automatically. He tested the program with an imaginary
customer called Rich Bastard.
Unfortunately, an error resulted in all 2000 letters being addressed
"Dear Rich Bastard". The luckless programmer was subsequently sacked."

 

[N_igma]

He'll be working for Citigroup before you know it, I hear they have a real good "ethos".

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

The sudden discovery of morals is a bit laughable obviously but I'd have thought what he's saying is far more damaging commercially than anything else he could say. 'I've decided banks are bad' can easily be laughed off, 'we've been systematically ripping off our clients' not so much. Not that it'll have any effect on the finance sector as a whole of course, but it might mean a lot of wealthy people taking their cash elsewhere.

 

[Dr Jon]

Goldman Sachs Executive Director Corroborates Reggie Middleton's Stance: Business Model Designed To Walk Over Clients

GOLDMAN SCREWS

Vermin

 

[ViolentPanda]

Ever had a job parasite?

What's a job parasite, knob-face?

 

[Gingerman]

http://articles.businessinsider.com...67_1_blankfein-goldman-sachs-year-end-bonuses
Doing "God's work" don't cha know.

 

[quimcunx]

The sudden discovery of morals is a bit laughable obviously but I'd have thought what he's saying is far more damaging commercially than anything else he could say. 'I've decided banks are bad' can easily be laughed off, 'we've been systematically ripping off our clients' not so much. Not that it'll have any effect on the finance sector as a whole of course, but it might mean a lot of wealthy people taking their cash elsewhere.

I doubt their clients will take kindly to being described as muppets who let them rip them off either. Bit of a Ratner moment.

 

[not-bono-ever]

The sudden discovery of morals is a bit laughable obviously but I'd have thought what he's saying is far more damaging commercially than anything else he could say. 'I've decided banks are bad' can easily be laughed off, 'we've been systematically ripping off our clients' not so much. Not that it'll have any effect on the finance sector as a whole of course, but it might mean a lot of wealthy people taking their cash elsewhere.

I forsee their HNW clients getting more "tips" in thr next year

 

[ymu]

What do you do?
Are you blameless?

I detect fraudulent claims from pharmaceutical companies so that they can't con the NHS into bankrupting itself by poisoning people for their profit. And teach doctors to spot it for themselves. I have uncovered three major errors which have lain unnoticed in the literature for over a decade in each case, as a direct result of which health services worldwide save over £200 million/year. Total savings from projects which I have been involved with would run into tens of billions each year, and a decent gain in life expectancy and/or quality of life for a significant chunk of people with cancer, and from the proper use of monies which would otherwise have been diverted to idle investors.

In medical research, we don't get 10% bonuses on the gains we make possible. The money, quite rightly, gets spent on providing more effective treatments than the overpriced poisons.

But now my disability has caught up with me and I can no longer work. The cuts have dried up funds for me to freelance at home. I cannot claim ESA or JSA. My partner is in the same position and we are fucked. Thanks to you greedy cunts who care for no one but yourselves.

 

[ymu]

I missed the bit when investment banks were supposed to have morals. Who knew? Surely the whole point of them is to make money? So they're making it for themselves rather than clients? Big shock.

Oh no the derivatives market went all selfish.

That's precisely why they need regulation, which is precisely why they lobby so hard against it, which is precisely why we are in this fucking mess.

 

[ymu]

Wolff argued that the culture described by Smith has been prevalent throughout the financial services industry for decades.

"Clearly something happened economically in the last 20 or 30 years to create the modern hedge fund, the private equity firm, to create the environment in which they would develop," he said.

Wolff said he had mixed feelings about Smith's decision to speak out. "Part of me wants to go out and pat such a person on the back and say, 'Good for you for having had the courage to say this sort of thing and to do it publicly'," he said. "On the other hand, part of me wants to go to such a person and say, 'Hello, where have you been? How do you come suddenly to this realization when an absolute encyclopedia of evidence is around you?'"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/mar/14/goldman-sachs-employees-greg-smith-resignation

Indeed. How do you manage to work in finance for that long and not fucking realise? You'd have to be stupid, greedy or both.

 

[Greebo]

Ever had a job parasite?

I believe you meant to say "Ever had a job, parasite?".

In which case FYI the answer is that before becoming medically retired, VP held down several jobs, most of which had extremely long hours* or included a lot of overtime on a semi permanant basis.

*Which is as least part of the reason he ended up being medically retired.

 

[wtfftw]

"ever had a job parasite"
Job doesn't equal worth. Let's not justify existence like that.

 

[Greebo]

<snip>Job doesn't equal worth. Let's not justify existence like that.

Word.

 

[stethoscope]

"ever had a job parasite"
Job doesn't equal worth. Let's not justify existence like that.

Yep.

 

[ymu]

Why Greg Smith was right about Goldman Sachs

There were obvious dangers in this process that stemmed from the gradual dismantling in the final quarter of the 20th century of the curbs placed on Wall Street after the Great Depression in the 1930s. They were, however, masked until the second big development: the final crisis of 2007-08. This not only exposed – brutally and repeatedly – the follies of investment banks that had allowed their greed to get the better of their judgement, but also turned the big beasts of Wall Street into supplicants for taxpayer handouts.

Those financiers who had spent the previous 15 years demanding that Washington get off the back of business suddenly found that there was case for government, after all – even if that only amounted to a willingness to write big cheques that would guarantee their annual bonuses. Rightly, ordinary voters were disgusted: privatising gain and socialising losses is not the way American capitalism (or any other form of it) is supposed to work
.
To rub salt in the wound, once the immediate crisis was over, Wall Street insisted that the burden of clearing up the financial mess that Wall Street created be shouldered by ordinary voters – through cuts in public spending.

Where does this leave us? There are three conclusions from all this. The first is that Goldman Sachs has suffered reputational damage from the Smith attack. The public was tolerant of the excesses of the investment banking fraternity when times were good: when house prices are falling and real incomes are being squeezed, it tends to be less forgiving. There is no great love lost between Goldmans and its corporate customers, either.

The second conclusion is that it is time there was more competition in the investment banking industry. Returns on capital are high, and the reason for that is that the barriers are high for potential new entrants. It takes a lot of capital to set up an investment bank, which is why the industry operates as a self-serving oligopoly, rather than as a channel for productive investment in the real economy.

The final conclusion, therefore, is that if the competition does not happen naturally through market forces (and there is no hint that it will), then a much tougher regulatory regime is needed – so that the corporate finance and trading arms of investment banks are split into different firms.

That would limit the opportunity for conflict of interest and would cut the cost of finance to business. Above all, it would tackle what has become a colossal conspiracy by the super-rich against the general public.

 

[goldenecitrone]

Ever had a job parasite?

Iain Duncan Smith wants his slogan back.

 

[hipipol]

What's a job parasite, knob-face?

Its 17th C punctuation
No comma needed
Who told about me scrotum chin porblems?

PS I am so soory to have attacked you that way - I was very much in my cups,but that no ecxuse, I chose to get that way. In a rather feeble defnse all I can say if that somehow I read you name as soneone else and flipped out.
No excuse So very srory
Mea Culpa, Mea maxima culpa

 

[ViolentPanda]

Its 17th C punctuation
No comma needed
Who told about me scrotum chin porblems?

PS I am so soory to have attacked you that way - I was very much in my cups,but that no ecxuse, I chose to get that way. In a rather feeble defnse all I can say if that somehow I read you name as soneone else and flipped out.
No excuse So very srory
Mea Culpa, Mea maxima culpa

I'll let you off this once, 'cos I always feel a bit of empathy for people with chins like scrotums, what with me having a nose like a Jersey Royal.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

Are you called Shrek in real life?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Are you called Shrek in real life?

No, but we're both ogres.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Ever had a job parasite?

I know you two are just trolling each other, but can someone explain to me why this is the standard goto for people who think banks have the right to commit outright fraud, cook books, etc.?

There's no reason to think someone with a job will be less outraged than someone without one. You could make an argument that they might be more likely to complain because they have something to lose. If you've got a pension fund that's been directly raided you're more likely to see the connection than someone whose job prospects have been ruined.

 

[teqniq]

* Bump *

Nothing changes. Capitalism in a nutshell:

Goldman Sachs asks in biotech research report: 'Is curing patients a sustainable business model?'

Goldman Sachs warns sales from the most successful disease treatments are difficult to maintain.

www.cnbc.com

 

[cybershot]

Fuck sake.

 

[platinumsage]

* Bump *

Nothing changes. Capitalism in a nutshell:

Goldman Sachs asks in biotech research report: 'Is curing patients a sustainable business model?'

Goldman Sachs warns sales from the most successful disease treatments are difficult to maintain.

www.cnbc.com

Yes the three proposed solutions are so objectionable it's enough to make you sick

 

[NoXion]

Yes the three proposed solutions are so objectionable it's enough to make you sick

Profits are secondary to ethics. The fuckers would charge us per breath if they thought they could get away with it. Multi-billion dollar industries such as tobacco and fossil fuels have spent literal decades lying about the negative effects of their shit.