RESIGNING FROM GOLDMAN SACHS

Greg Smith, an executive director at Goldman Sachs and head of derivatives for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, decided to leave the company yesterday by writing his resignation letter in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs. He says he is going because Goldman no longer has the culture of integrity and of "always doing right by our clients" that it used to have, now it is only concerned with making money, usually at their expense.

I have a couple of comments on this. The first is that the culture thing is tosh. Liar's Poker was written long before Mr. Smith joined the firm 12 years ago; and although Michael Lewis worked for Salomon Brothers rather than Goldman Sachs, he described an industry in which all of the major players were milking their clients. The only thing that has changed since then is the amount of money involved.

Secondly, after twelve years of helping Goldman to milk them, Mr. Smith can afford to leave, even if it means unemployment for the rest of his life.

Resigning after 6 months might have impressed me. Resigning after 12 years, and then trying to claim the moral high ground, does not.

Walter Blotscher