Things like ethics
Posted by Thomas Nephew on May 13th, 2010
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein gets it. Sort of:
Lloyd C. Blankfein continued to defend Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s reputation on Wednesday in comments to some of the firm’s wealthiest clients.The embattled chairman and chief executive, who last week was grilled by a Senate subcommittee looking into Goldman’s role in the financial crisis, said the firm will always put clients first. He said there is also a silver lining to the civil-fraud charges leveled against the firm by the Securities and Exchange Commission: It allows the firm to re-examine how its business practices.
“Frankly, at this point we have to go with an open mind and determine what we may be doing wrong,” Mr. Blankfein told customers of its private-wealth-management business during a 30-minute conference call. “On a very microscopic level, we’re going to use this as an opportunity for a deep dive on our practices and how we run things.”
He pledged to clients that he wants Goldman to “be the leader in things like ethics, in putting clients first.”
– Blankfein Defends Goldman’s Ethics (Bruno, Philbin; Wall Street Journal, May 5)
Michael Lewis (”The Big Short”) responds with an attaboy, and action items to“create the illusion for American mortals (or as we like to call them, “The Morts”) that our business is in their interest, much less that we share anything in common“:
No. 5: Be careful not to say or do anything now that will constrain our ability, after this crisis has passed, to do whatever we want.
The other day, on your emergency conference call with our customers, you said that you wanted Goldman to be seen as a “leader in things like ethics.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself. If in the future we fail to be a leader in ethics we can point to your statement as evidence that we never intended to be a leader in ethics, merely in “things like ethics.”
Lewis vows to compile a list of “things like ethics” for Blankfein to lead in — but Blankfein’s way ahead of him: he’s talking about “things like ethics,” and that all by itself is being a “leader” in “things like ethics”! And I like finding a silver lining in civil fraud charges against your company — it shows the kind of roll up your sleeves, getting busy with that ethics stuff we’re looking for. Good luck with “determining what you may be doing wrong”! … That’s right: “getting caught.”
Mainly, of course, Blankfein knows that having the right buddies helps with things like ethics. Remember Obama’s “First of all, I know both these guys”? Again, it’s not actually ethics, just something like ethics — call it maybe “reputation illusion management.” I just hope Obama hasn’t been learning too much from Blankfein about how to “put his clients first.” This doesn’t look good, though.
Category: Post. Tags: moral hazard, mortgage crisis, social security, what did I do wrong.
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