The Banker resigning from Goldman Sachs because they’re sharp bastards
THE New York Times today has a piece from a Goldman Sachs senior banking types who is resigning because all the people he works with are complete bastards. (More here.)
This might even be true and no doubt there are going to be all sorts of people coming out of the woodwork shouting “Told You So!”.
It’s what happens next that is going to be interesting. For there will undoubtedly be some who say this shows why more regulation of bastard bankers is required and really, wouldn’t it all be better of they were just nationalised or shot?
Which is really an alarming lack of understanding about how this capitalism and free market stuff works.
I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.
Leave aside whether it is true or not and just assume that it is.
Excellent, they’re greedy bastards doing no more than rip off their trusting customers. As they continue to do this their ustomers will wise up and leave.
At which point Goldman Sachs is bust and we’ve solved the problem, haven’t we?
And that’s the real point here. Sure, capitalism, free markets, investment banking even, they’ve got their problems. But the one thing the underlying system is very good at is getting rid of businesses and or organisations that don’t have any customers. It is a self-limiting system. So we don’t actuallyhave to do anything about this at all.
If tey really are ripping everyone off then they’ll go bust. If they’re not, if they’re providing something their customers value then they won’t. And if they’re proviing that value we don’t want them to go bust anyway.
Posted: 14th, March 2012 | In: Money Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
