I have been seeing reports lately that an unusually large number of top level banking and finance executives worldwide have been resigning their positions. The American Kabuki website features a report titled, 320 RESIGNATIONS FROM WORLD BANKS, INVESTMENT HOUSES, MONEY FUNDS, and a Japanese website has posted some amazing graphs of resignations by region, by country, and by company.
Now, today, the New York Times is reporting that, “Greg Smith is resigning today as a Goldman Sachs executive director and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.”
And Smith is not going quietly. The Times has published his Op-Ed article in which he explains the basis for his action. It begins with this…
Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
By GREG SMITH
TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.
To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.
I urge everyone to read the rest of the article here.
Beyond Money 
It was suggested that barter may be the best answer to life. Is not a gift economy the ideal situation. So how do we get there from the present situation? Love all. Give what you can, whenever you can. It is not a matter of things you have. Anyone can give help, service, a kind ear etc.
If you believe this will not work, a search will show you that it is working and some people are living that life; just giving unconditionally.
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Yes, a gift economy may be the ultimate step in the evolution of economic exchange but it will require a process of personalization of relationships and reconstruction of the social fabric.
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My experience of GS via the Roywest Trust Corporation tax scam, is that it was a corrupt institution in 1984 when I worked for Roywest. Greg Smith is being disingenuous in pretending that is is somehow a new problem.
On February 16, 2014 at 11:58 PM Beyond Money wrote:
> Scarlet Sciob commented: “It was suggested that barter may be the best answer > to life. Is not a gift economy the ideal situation. So how do we get there > from the present situation? Love all. Give what you can, whenever you can. It > is not a matter of things you have. Anyone can giv” >
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This guy was right he is an insider he told this was going to happen
this is a must watch!
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HiTom. I just learned of you on the Solari report. What is your take on the number of resignations that you cited? Is this an abnormally high number? Catherine Austin Fitts had said given the large number of banks, and the markets she did not find it surprising. What do you attribute it to?
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If you follow the links that I gave (http://americankabuki.blogspot.com.au/p/131-resignations-from-world-banks.html and http://www.news-us.jp/article/256887347.html) you’ll see that the number of resignations is way up from a year ago. Those sites also have some interesting reader comments.
I’m only guessing, but here are two plausible possibilities:
1. The rats are deserting a sinking ship.
2. The powers that be have laid down the law that they are ready to implement something BIG, and it’s a matter of “go along or GET OUT!”
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Thank you. I’m starting to hear them referred to as “The Powers that Were”, and I am liking the sound of that.
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Tom, what do you make of the numbers of resignations you cited? Is it a higher than normal number, and what do you attribute it to?
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larouchepac dot com —- can save you time.
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You can run…..
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I don’t believe a word of it. Goldman Sachs has always been what it is and so have the people who work for it. All that has changed is that now everybody knows. “No fortune was ever made honestly” is an old saying the truth of which becomes more apparent with each passing year. Rats leaving sinking ships comes to mind.
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I would suggest an alternative reason. We know that the bailout money is not reaching the real economy. These guys gave themselves huge bonuses and are getting out of town. If you look at the banks involved you will see I am probably correct.
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Which does then beg the question of what Smith has been doing at Goldman Sachs for the last 12 years while it was sliding into corruption.
So nice of him to develop a conscience after he made so much money off said corruption. A conscience so strong he felt fully justified in scurrying off like a rat from a sinking ship… but not actually, yknow…doing anything of note.
A sarcastic round of applause for our clever little rat.
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The letter is in itself nuero-linguistic conditioning/programming. It implies there could be something legitimate about banking if it’s done right. Unless you live in a region where the public cash supply is issued by a public bookkeeper directly to the citizens in equal amounts, and there are private local brokerages, and there is no bank, you are being ripped off. Currently there’s nowhere on the planet doing this.
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@Philo. Your post is in itself neuro-linguistic programming. It implies there could be something legitimate about *money* if it’s “done right”.
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Fair enough. I am considering adopting the position that creating a written promissory obligation or any form of paper currency should be punishable by death. In other words – nothing but barter. It may be the only solution.
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That’s rather extreme. There are better solutions. It seems you’ve not read my books.
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@philo
Unless all men can learn to work together for the sheer joy of it without thought of any reward then mankind is doomed to perpetual enslavement to its cheats, liars, swindlers and psychopaths. “Barter” is only a more primitive method of swindling the unsophisticated than “money” and, once again, your neuro-linguistic programming is showing since it implies there could be something “legitimate” about so-called “private property”, if only it was “done right”. In fact your use of the word ‘legitimate’ in itself implies there could be something worthwhile about the *Rule of Law”, if only making the laws wasn’t somehow always in the hands of cheats, liars, swindlers and enslavers.
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Is there a nutshell version on this site, or could you post one?
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You’re right Peter. Trade of any sort should be eliminated. We can’t risk anyone being taken advantage of. I will cease my efforts to reform monetary policy immediately and focus on eliminating trade. And I will propagate the notion that all property could be commonly owned like the banker agent Karl Marx did.
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@philo
Perhaps you should eliminate your own chronic insecurity instead of seeking to “reform” others. Your philosophy, evidently that “the Lord” put fools there for you to take unfair advantage of them, is exactly that of the bankers you claim to despise.
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@Peter – You’re not a banker, I’m not a banker, I will not fight with you. I will take as much time as needed to explain how the bank usurps every kind of community currency that gains any amount of “success”. You will of course deny I know what I’m talking about in an effort to maintain what you consider your sanity. If I despised bankers, I wouldn’t be trying to develop an exit strategy for them to stay alive.
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@philo
Yes it’s true, thank Athena, that I am not a banker. I have, however, worked in the bowels (it has no heart) of the beast, as you would discover were you to click on my name on this particular post. It was all the education I needed to know all about institutionalized gangsterism. There is a Universal Law. We Brits call it “Sod’s Law”. It runs like this:- “If it can happen then it will happen.” So, if barter can happen then money can happen then banking can happen then Goldman Sachs can happen. And guess what?
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@Peter – ‘Tis true, I see, you indeed have been in the bowels since I was a wee lad. But, by your logic, a currency not controlled by private bankers will happen.
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@philo
It did happen – in classical Athens – and just look what the “private bankers” (you’re so polite! 🙂 did to them then – and are still doing to them now. Anyway, whoever controls the currency is “the bank”, by definition. (And read Socrates on the subject of Babylonian bankers.)
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Yea, these guys are going to try to position themselves in “culpable deniability”. As if there’ll be leniency on them once it hits the fan. It’s time to start making provisions for your protection Mr. Banker and all banker agents. Get together, find a remote Island, arrange for military protection. I don’t want to see you get hurt. You’re not going to be living in luxury by any means, but at least you’ll be alive. You just foreclosed one too many times. You’ve destroyed too many lives. Those who don’t really know the Lord are just gonna go nuts.
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