Apr 16, 2010

Goldman Sachs as the American Dream Factory

They're an American Dream Factory at Goldman Sachs [...] someone's gotta straighten out the PR problem there more than the SEC problem, frankly. [...] Like it or not, perception is 90% of reality on Wall Street. This firm, for 150-plus years, had a fantastic, client-centric position and reputation. For whatever reason, it's gone from client-centrism to where clients feel that they are potentially a counter-party to Goldman Sachs. I don't think anybody inside Goldman Sachs feels that way, but they've certainly done a horrific job of expressing that client-centrism. [...] This is really a public relations problem, this is one securities-infraction on a 30,000 person employee base... $12 billion [of lost market-cap on GS] is way overblown. [...] Listen, if you've worked on a trading desk on Wall Street you know someone can hide a ticket in a drawer. I don't care how much compliance you have, I don't care how much intensity you have in the supervisory process, it could happen to anybody. And so, I think probably people didn't know about it. You can knock Goldman for being arrogant, you can knock Goldman for being bad in PR, ya can't knock Goldman for a lack of ethics or compliance-centrism. That's been a hallmark of this organization forever. [...] Guys, you sound like a bunch of media-types trying to start a populist fire. Let's not try to start a populist fire, let's look at this clinically: you had a rogue inside this organization. You don't think there's rogues there? There's rogues everywhere.

~ Anthony Scaramucci, managing partner, Skybridge Capital, and ex-Goldman Sachs employee, CNBC, April 16, 2010

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