Thank you, Greg Smith

I didn't announce my retirement on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times,
but I'm glad Greg Smith did on March 14.

Maybe you heard about him. Greg was an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs, in charge of the company's U.S. equity derivatives operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. (By the way, imagine that, GS now has extended operations on every continent to push the kind of toxic financial instruments that buried us in a housing meltdown and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression…..).

But, back to my hero, Greg Smith. Mr. Smith is now famous because he not only decided to quit his job, he decided to explain why on the Times Op-Ed.

Boil it down to this, here's a quote: "Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as 'muppets,' sometimes over internal email."

And another one: "I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It's purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them."

And another one: "…the environment [at Goldman Sachs] now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it."


At  Goldman Sachs, the folks who brought us the housing bubble, financial meltdown, state/local government crisis, high unemployment and continuing human misery are still doing it.

Greg, thanks for telling it like it is. Hope you have better luck in your next job.

…and I realize this is a bear of a different color, but I always liked Fozzie_Bear and I wanted to use his picture……Wocka Wocka!