Now he’s upset? Greg Smith spent years at Goldman Sachs’ London office while practices he’s now blasting were criticized by outsiders. (
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Just-resigned Goldman Sachs derivatives salesman Greg Smith thinks the firm is run by a bunch of “morally bankrupt people” who’ve created a culture hell-bent on making money at all costs, by “ripping their clients off.”
Huh? It’s hardly a secret that Goldman, one of the world’s largest investment firms, likes to make money by playing rough — so rough that it has no qualms betting against its own clients’ positions in the market. And while it may play a bit rougher than most of its competitors, Goldman’s hardly alone in the Wall Street sharp-elbow department.
Which is why Smith’s long resignation-letter Op Ed in Wednesday’s New York Times — which immediately went viral and was the subject of countless and sometimes fatuous follow-ups — is so interesting.
Yes, Smith may well believe every word he wrote. He may be completely sincere in his hope that the column will serve as a “wake-up call” so the firm finally get its “culture right again.”
But he should also realize that, whatever his intentions, the Times is being far less sincere; it’s using his words to play a bigger, more political game.
This game has nothing to do with protecting the Goldman clients that Smith says are being screwed. It’s about scoring political points and advancing the class warfare agenda that the Times, its editors and probably most of its reporters hope will re-elect Barack Obama, the nation’s biggest class-warrior in decades.
In that sense, Greg Smith is nothing short of a pawn.
Consider Smith’s detailed description of how Goldman pushes “lucrative and complicated products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or ones most directly aligned with the client’s goals.” This is, to put it politely, old news.
Goldman has been doing it for years, and seasoned Wall Street reporters (including myself) have written as much. So you’d think that, back in 2008 — when Goldman’s traders were at their nastiest, engaging in all those risky, allegedly deceptive and immoral practices that caused the financial collapse — the Times would have mounted a similar, high-profile attack, complete with Page 1 follow-upsand more stories inside the paper.
Yet I can’t remember any such overwrought coverage. Maybe that’s because back in 2008, the firm was on the side of the angels as the second-largest contributor to candidate Barack Obama.
What a difference a few years makes. Goldman, is now moving to the right under the president’s class-warfare fire. Campaign records show that Goldman’s new candidate of choice is Republican hopeful Mitt Romney.
Just connect the dots.
Whether Smith knows it or not, he’s reinforcing the Left’s demonization of the firm, which had also been the target not just of Obama, but also the Times’ new favorite movement, Occupy Wall Street.
The Times and other media tried desperately to portray this ragtag, sometimes violent group of squatters as a legitimate political movement, a counterweight to the Tea Party. But it didn’t turn out that way, as the OWS crowds dispersed back to their dorm rooms or their parents’ basements, while the Tea Party continues to exert real influence in the Republican Party.
Without the OWS kids, the Left has been in a lurch. Greg Smith was used to fill this void.
Two final observations: Smith says he’s “ill” over Goldman’s moral decay, but not so ill that he didn’t stick it out for 12 years at the firm, earning (I’m told) somewhere between $500,000 and $750,000 in recent years. He also sounds pretty naive when he says that on Wall Street, “if you make enough money for the firm . . . you will be promoted into a position of influence.” Come on, Greg — you didn’t know that going in?
He’s sure being naive if he thinks his column will be used for anything other than advancing the left’s agenda.
Charles Gasparino is a Fox Business Network senior correspondent.