Thursday, March 15, 2012

TOO OLD TO CRY

Laughter is the only alternative

I got a call this morning from a former colleague who still working (makes too much money to quit).

"Anybody send you the Goldman response?"

"To the op ed in the Times by the guy that quit?  No."

"Well, Master Smith is described as a relatively low-level employee who had 'issues.'"

"Was he?  He made himself to sound a good deal more grand."

"Not according to Goldman and they came up with the proof.  He apparently never made more than $700,000 a year in his career."

Only in the Fairy Coo-Coo land that is Wall Street and Goldman Sachs can one making 700k be considered low-level.  Even more unbelievable is that Goldman thinks that this revelation is going to engender sympathy for the firm.  Finally, it never enters into their minds that some poor schnook scraping by at 700k might sent a message to their client base: "SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND and they think he's low level?"  What the hell is a Managing Director or a Partner make off me?!"  You could cry but you're too old.  You can only laugh and marvel at the insensitivity and haplessness of a guy like Blankfein who is worth half a billion dollars at least and wonder how the hell did he make that?    Which gives even more credibility to Mr. Smith's account.  And as for Mr. Smith?  Going to be tough getting a job on the Street.  What he did was a no-no, but what the final yuk in this entire affair is,  to whom the heck did he think this was going to come as a revelation?  The walking dead of the past 15 years?  

And then there's the Fed.  If there has ever been more money spent on a purely academic exercise by a bunch of over-educated pin heads I have yet to see it.  On thing I missed yesterday--and it was egregious on my part--was the apparent lack of concern...or even understanding...as to the unintended consequences of such a bland presentation of irrelevant data could have had if the times had been different.  Six months or a year ago with the market sentiment that had existed at that time, we lose a bank.  It is just that simple except that if the bank were to be Citibank it's not simple at all.  Fortunately the times are different (although that is debatable) and certainly the sentiment is different as marked by the recovery of C in the Dow today.  This central bank has nary a clue when it comes to markets; at least the policy folks in D.C. share in that ignorance.  The only good thing about this is that Mr. Bernake's salary is limited to $180,000 a year by law.  Imagine if he were paid as a low-level employee of Goldman and was ripping the taxpayer for $500,000+?  There would be at no age where I wouldn't shed a tear.

1 comment:

  1. Carter (not Kermit)March 15, 2012 at 8:47 PM

    What do you mean? Bloomberg says Tarillo andbhis army of economists (the one thing the Fed has an excess supply of) have done an outstanding job. I mean, even Sheila agrees!


    Fed’s Stress-Test Champion Reshapes Regulation of Biggest Banks - Bloomberg
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-15/tarullo-s-revolution-reprograms-fed-s-regulation-of-u-s-banks.html

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