Tag Archives: greg smith

Move Over Ashton Kutcher: ex-Goldman’s Greg Smith Now Most Popular

If you haven’t read, or at least heard about the brouhaha surrounding GoldmanSachs’ former head of equity derivatives Greg Smith and his farewell-to-the-firm soliloquy in today’s New York Times, you might be on an advance scouting mission to Mars on behalf of Newt Gingrich.

Aside from this story occupying Wall Street, and the hearts and minds of the talking heads at CNBC, as of this writing (1:40pm, EST), Google data indicates “Greg Smith/GoldmanSachs” has been mentioned more than 250,000 times across the “Net” , not including this phrase being one of the Top 5 Twitter tweet phrases across the globe.

Greg Smith, Former GoldmanSachs VP

Move over Ashton Kutcher; Greg Smith is now an uber super-star for bearing his soul in a dramatic ending of his career as the spawn of “The Squid.” And, let’s not forget to mention that while Smith’s letting the door hit himself on the way out might impact his severance, it has also made him a fav among ethical females.

My better half, struck by the ethos articulated by Smith’s op-ed, txt’d me to ask whether I knew if Greg Smith is single. She claims to have posited the question on behalf of our marrying-age daughter; but any idiot that knows us could easily detect the inherent conflict of interest; no doubt my wife can guess that Smith is too old for our daughter, but just right for her mom the cougar.

Smith’s soberly-stated reflections of his tenure, and in particular with respect to his claims of  conflict of interest becoming a cultural norm at Goldman is no surprise to critics of Wall Street, et.al. Socialistic Cynics will argue that conflict of interest is both an ingredient and a by-product of capitalism, and therefore breeds contempt.  But, as one actively-trading hedge fund manager/Goldman customer says (without being authorized by his firm to speak on the record), “..One needs to fully understand..the double-sided coin before cashing in the conflict of interest complaint.” Continue reading