CALDEIRÃO DE BOLSA

JLMF Escreveu:Boas tardes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPOmbEpI ... r_embedded

Cpmts

Chuck Epstein Escreveu:Defending Mr. Smith of Goldman Sachs
Belittling and attacking Greg Smith, the ex-Goldman derivatives trader, who wrote about his personal experiences and opinions based on working at Goldman Sachs, has become a cause celeb.

But comments from reporters who cover Wall Street show some serious prejudices and deficiencies in their journalistic perspectives.

First, attacking Mr. Smith is not good journalism. Mr. Smith’s New York Times article was an op-ed, an opinion piece. Surely, editors and reports don’t want to penalize Mr. Smith for voicing his opinion? Secondly. Mr. Smith has been belittled because these same editors and reporters claim Mr. Smith forgot that Goldman Sachs was all about making money. Well, so were Krupps and Dow Chemical (which made napalm during the View Nam war). They profited from wars, which most people find abhorrent. Goldman contributed largely to the severe recession and subsequent federal bailout by its risky OTC, mortgage-related derivatives. Ask AIG head Hank Greenberg how Goldman treated him as a customer.

Finally, editors and reporters should recognize the benefits of whistle blowers in any industry since they invariably know more than the editors and reporters, who cover the industry. Mr. Smith is no whistle blower; he only voiced his opinion. By all accounts, he is intelligent and rose to become a top manager based on his exceptional abilities. As a 30-something professional, he also reportedly made about $600,000 a year, which is much more than 99% of all reporters, including those who criticized him. So if he was only concerned about the money, why rock the boat?

Obviously, there was something more at work here and it did not conform to the Wall Street media’s worldview. Unfortunately, this says more about the sad state of the financial media than Mr. Smith. And this may be the bigger story here, rather than the one about one individual’s opinion about his company’s management and treatment of its clients.

What’s Wrong With the Financial Media
As the former managing director of marketing for the NYSE’s futures exchange (the NYFE), I broke the story about former NYSE Chairman John Phelan’s $10 million secret bonus when he retired in about 1993. I could not interest any Wall Street media in that story, so it appeared in a London futures trade publication. I got paid $200. It was then picked up by a New York trade publication (Investment Dealer’s Digest) and then it appeared on page 3 of the Wall Street Journal.

So, my lesson is that the closer you are to Wall Street, the more important your editors and reporters think they are. Inflated self-importance and vanity come easily to many who cover Wall Street. Rather then focusing on the news event (Phelan’s secret bonus), I became the accused, after all, who would ever criticize the NYSE? (I remember one female NYSE board member even called me “impertinent” for even asking about the salary of the top executive of this semi-public institution.) Had there been more media attention about this small bonus in the early-1990s, it could have re-shaped the entire subsequent discussion about executive compensation and wage disparities, which has become so critical today.

So defending Goldman is really just a selfish self-defense mechanism that blinds many editors and reporters to widespread conflicts-of-interest and even mass fraud right in their own backyard. Sure Goldman is about making money, but so were Enron, Global Crossing, WAMU, Bank of America and the rest of the infamous names that imploded and caused billions in losses to shareholders and U.S. taxpayers.

Then, there is also the mean-spirited attack that says Mr. Smith’s exercise of his First Amendment rights will end his career. These same reporters and editors should remember the equity analyst scandal of 2000 in which equity analyst were forced or voluntarily complied with demands from their firm’s investment bankers to promote a company (often high-tech) based on false promises and fake profit projections. This widespread fraud by many Chartered Financial Analysts (ask Henry Blodget and Mary Meeker) and corrupt investment bankers helped cause the 2000 tech bubble and related recession.

But here again, there were some analysts who refused to co-operate with the intimidation and false claims. Some were fired and demoted, but there were a small number, who were highly ethical and refused to co-operate with the fraud. There is even a notable case of an analyst who criticized Donald Trump’s Atlantic City casino investment, and was fired after Trump protested his financial analysis. The analyst was demoted, but he was right: the Trump investment lost money.

Sadly, too many of these firms failed to recognize the courage of people who are critical of their management, and this continues today. This is a blatant misuse of power and shows poor executive leadership. America’s largest corporations rhetorically claim their organizations are open via their Town Hall meetings, but anyone who has ever attended one knows they are just exhibitions. Large corporations are not designed to handle serious complaints since they reflect poorly on management. This scenario is as old as the hills. Shoot the messenger and all is well. At mutual fund company meetings I attended, any discussion of fees and expenses was verboten, while individual investor concerns were never mentioned. This helps explain why fund expense ratios at the largest fund companies never are reduced even as assets under management increase. Mr. Smith presumably saw this same abuses over his 15-year career at Goldman. Now, the media and others consider him the messenger, but they wantonly disregard his message.

No Retribution Needed

Then, there are the calls for Mr. Smith to never work on Wall Street again. This is the retaliation side of Wall Street, and it helps foster the “business as usual” victimization of corporate, institutional and the most uninformed individual investors. These are the uninformed who buy high-fee annuities, under-performing actively-managed mutual funds, and even billions in exotic OTC derivatives.

In all these cases, the investor-customer relies on the supposed higher knowledge of the investment professional who is selling the product to provide the “best” advice. But when a professional sells ill-suited, deficient, inappropriate or overly expensive products, they have violated their basic duty. This applies even when there is no fiduciary standard in place, and it helps explain why the large fund and brokerage firms are fighting the adoption of the higher fiduciary standard. Being ethical applies to selling clothes, food, or something as important as an investment to unsuspecting buyers. Mr. Smith saw this and voiced his opinion.

The Bible (Leviticus 19:14) says: “You shall not curse the deaf nor place a stumbling block before the blind.” This relates to giving bad advice to another or causing harm in any way to the unsuspecting. It is 2,000-year-old advice, and it is just as important today.

As more comes out about Goldman’s trader culture, which victimizes the less-informed, but sticks them with all the risk, commissions and fees, I bet these same editors and reporters will owe Mr. Smith an apology. He certainly deserves one

andre_ferreira Escreveu:e agora é o neto do fundador do GS que diz eles f**** o banco do avozinho

GOLDMAN HEIR SPEAKS: Greg Smith Was Right, They Ruined My Great-Grandfather's Company


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-go ... z1pHHVBUZn

GOLDMAN HEIR SPEAKS: Greg Smith Was Right, They Ruined My Great-Grandfather's Company


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-go ... z1pHHVBUZn

vgasmo Escreveu:Deixo isto aqui:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-06/goldman-secret-greece-loan-shows-two-sinners-as-client-unravels.html

A culpa também é dos é dos Gregos (dois pecadores)... mas ética=0

today in NYT Escreveu:Public Rebuke of Culture at Goldman Opens Debate

Until early Wednesday morning, Greg Smith was a largely anonymous 33-year-old midlevel executive at Goldman Sachs in London.

Now everyone at the firm — and on Wall Street — knows his name.

Mr. Smith resigned in an e-mail message to his bosses at 6:40 a.m. London time, laying out concerns that Goldman’s culture had gone haywire, putting its own interests ahead of its clients.

What the e-mail didn’t say was that about 15 minutes later, an Op-Ed article he had written detailing his criticisms was to be published in The New York Times. “It makes me ill how callously people still talk about ripping off clients,” he wrote in the Op-Ed article.

The Op-Ed landed “like a bomb,” inside Goldman, said one executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The article reignited a debate on the Internet and on cable television over whether Wall Street was corrupted by greed and excess. By noon, television crews crowded outside Goldman’s headquarters in Lower Manhattan. More than three years after the financial crisis, the perception that little has changed on Wall Street — and that no one has been held accountable for the risk-taking that led to the crisis — looms large in the public consciousness. While it was an unusual cry from the heart of a Wall Street insider, many questioned whether it would prompt any change.

Greg Smith, an executive at Goldman Sachs, resigned on March 14 and criticized the company's culture.Greg Smith, an executive at Goldman Sachs, resigned on March 14 and criticized the company’s culture.

Goldman disagreed with the assertions in the Op-Ed article, saying that they did not reflect how the firm treated its clients. Top executives have previously said that despite some rough times of late, clients have stuck with the firm.

Friends of Mr. Smith, who had a list of Goldman’s business principles taped on a wall by his computers in London, say they were not surprised by his public farewell. “He has a really high moral fiber and really cared about the culture of the firm,” said Daniel Lipkin, a Miami lawyer who went to Stanford with Mr. Smith. Mr. Lipkin learned about the Op-Ed on Wednesday from Mr. Smith. “He sounded confident and felt good about his decision to go public,” he said.

Although he isn’t highly paid by Wall Street standards — earning about $500,000 last year, according to people briefed on the matter — Mr. Smith is part of what some Goldman staff members and alumni refer to as a sizable, yet silent contingent within the investment bank. These people are increasingly frustrated with what they see as a shift in recent years to a profit-above-all mentality.

Evidence of this shift, they say, can be seen in the accusations brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2010 that the firm intentionally duped certain clients by selling a mortgage-security product that was designed by another Goldman client betting that the housing market would crash. More recently, a Delaware judge criticized Goldman over the multiple, and potentially conflicting, roles it played in brokering an energy deal. (In both cases, Goldman has denied any wrongdoing.)

The reaction on Wall Street to Mr. Smith’s resignation ranged from those cheering him to others criticizing him for resigning in such a public way. Some within Goldman sought to portray Mr. Smith as a lone wolf — he did not manage anyone — who had failed to become a managing director. (There are about 12,000 executive directors, the equivalent of being a vice president in the United States, but only about 2,500 managing directors among Goldman’s 33,300 employees.)

Still, the ripple effects were felt beyond Wall Street. Shares of Goldman fell 3.4 percent. And media coverage was worldwide. “Goldman Boss: We Call Our Clients Muppets,” screamed the front page of The London Evening Standard.

Others were less surprised. One Goldman client who spoke on the condition of anonymity called the letter “naïve,” saying that the firm had been trading against its clients for years. “Come on, that is what they do and they are good traders, so I do business with them.”

Another Wall Street executive said it was “unforgivable” for Mr. Smith to make his opinions so public and he should have taken them privately to the firm’s senior managers. While Mr. Smith may have tried to raise his concerns with his superiors in meetings, as a fairly junior employee, he did not have much of a voice.

Goldman’s top two executives, Lloyd C. Blankfein and Gary Cohn, said in a letter to employees: “We were disappointed to read the assertions made by this individual that do not reflect our values, our culture and how the vast majority of people at Goldman Sachs think about the firm and the work it does on behalf of our clients. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. But it is unfortunate that an individual opinion about Goldman Sachs is amplified in a newspaper and speaks louder than the regular, detailed and intensive feedback you have provided the firm and independent, public surveys of workplace environments.”

But questions about Goldman’s culture persist at a time when the firm — and the rest of Wall Street — are undergoing a transition as the postfinancial crisis framework of regulations known as Dodd-Frank takes hold and as some profitable businesses show little sign of returning to their precrisis highs. It is not a hospitable environment for trading, yet Goldman remains very much a trading firm. Mr. Blankfein, a former gold salesman, comes from the trading business, as does the man who is seen as the most likely to succeed him as chief executive in the next year or two, Mr. Cohn.

Mr. Smith started at Goldman in sales. Born in Johannesburg, Mr. Smith is a grandson of Lithuanian Jews who emigrated to South Africa. His father is a pharmacist and his mother is pursuing a career in social work.

He won a full scholarship to Stanford and after graduating in 2001 landed a spot at Goldman, where he quickly worked his way up in the organization. A table tennis player, Mr. Smith won a bronze medal in the event at the Maccabiah Games in Israel.

He was sent to London about a year ago to sell United States derivative products to European and Middle Eastern investment funds.

What motivated Mr. Smith to come forward now? People close to him said he had high hopes for an internal report that came out after the S.E.C. case, which Goldman settled.

In 2010, Goldman embarked on an internal study that looked at the way it did business. The report reaffirmed the firm’s principles and outlined changes aimed largely at bolstering internal controls and disclosure.

But Mr. Smith thought it fell on deaf ears among senior managers, his friends say.

“I think this was the ultimate act of loyalty,” said Lex Bayer, a friend of Mr. Smith’s from high school in Johannesburg, who went to Stanford with him. “He has always been an advocate for the firm, but he wanted Goldman to do things the right way. In his mind, this was the only way that he could change the culture of the firm.”

He may not be alone inside Goldman. At staff meetings, Goldman’s leadership has been peppered with questions about the firm’s public reputation, say people who have attended those meetings, but who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

Mr. Smith is making a considerable financial sacrifice in publicly criticizing Goldman. Most Wall Street employees sign nondisparagement and nondisclosure agreements before they join a firm. If Mr. Smith did, Goldman may take legal action and refuse to release stock options he has accumulated. Mr. Smith may also find it difficult to find work on Wall Street after such a public resignation. A spokesman said that Goldman tried to contact Mr. Smith on Wednesday. It is not known whether he responded.

Mr. Smith did not speak publicly about his decision to leave Goldman. On Wednesday, Mr. Smith received messages of support from clients of Goldman.

“You do not know me, but I am a client of Goldman Sachs,” one of them said. “We trade a lot with Goldman and we know that we have to be very careful when we do so,” the person said. “We understand your message.”

People who have spoken to Mr. Smith said that he was flying back to New York on Wednesday night to see his family and friends. These people say Mr. Smith still has no concrete plan for what to do next. He tells friends that he wants to effect change in Goldman’s business practices, although it is unclear what that change would be.

Recruiters say it may be tough slogging for Mr. Smith to find work again on Wall Street, at least in the near term.

“There is a rule of thumb when interviewing — you don’t bad-mouth your old boss. No one wants to hear it,“ said Eric Fleming, the chief executive of the Wall Street recruiting firm Exemplar Partners Technology. “You can argue something like this needed to be said, but if you hire the guy who said it you are taking the risk he will do it again.”

Atomez Escreveu:O cliente é que nunca deve esquecer -- quem compra que se cuide.

MarcoAntonio Escreveu:

paulop2009 Escreveu:
Não o condeno. Eu (que tenho hoje 33 anos) quando coecei a trabalhar como gestor (aos 23) era muito mais crente no mundo corporativo e hoje sou bem mais cínico. O mundo corpotativo não mudou... Eu é que mudei.

Acontece que ele não diz que ele mudou, ele diz que a Goldman Sachs mudou e é bem claro nisso.

Como é que te estás a identificar com ele então?

São coisas perfeitamente diferentes e não é um pormenor coisa nenhuma...

AutoMech Escreveu:Curiosamente ando a ler o Liar's Poker e apenas muda o nome de Goldman Sachs para Salomon Brothers. A ser verdade o que o livro relata os clientes eram autenticamente assaltados.

Muffin Escreveu:
MarcoAntonio, não percebo a diferença. Se foi a GS que mudou, na minha opinião o que ele afirma é grave. Se foi ele que mudou, o que ele afirma sobre a GS é grave.