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"I'm not going to comment until I know what my boss thinks?" That's something nearly every underling has or will say at some point. If you'd prefer to cherry-p
by dreamweapon 12y ago
"I'm not going to comment until I know what my boss thinks?" That's something nearly every underling has or will say at some point.
If you'd prefer to cherry-pick, and boil Lewis's findings down to an innocuous sentence or two, then you're welcome to do so. But if you'd read his findings as a whole you can easily find much more damning material; for example, the following:
In meetings, Fed employees would defer to the Goldman people; if one of the Goldman people said something revealing or even alarming, the other Fed employees in the meeting would either ignore or downplay it. For instance, in one meeting a Goldman employee expressed the view that "once clients are wealthy enough certain consumer laws don't apply to them." After that meeting, Segarra turned to a fellow Fed regulator and said how surprised she was by that statement -- to which the regulator replied, "You didn't hear that."
- rayiner 12y agoThe quote I used is in the first paragraph. If he leads with it, presumably its one of his strongest arguments. Also, nothing alarming about the quote you just mentioned either. To the extent consumer laws consider sophistication of the consumer, its probably quite right. Sophisticated investors, for example, do not have many of the protections that apply to the general public.
- camelite 12y agoNothing at all alarming about "You didn't hear that?", really? Actually, the non-alarming part you do address is invalidated by the actually-alarming part you don't: if it was so unremarkable, why did her colleague instruct her to pretend it never happened?
- dreamweapon 12y agoIf it was so unremarkable, why did her colleague instruct her to pretend it never happened? Most likely the regulator simply didn't know what to make of what the Goldmanite had said (and might not have even been aware of the exemptions granted to accredited investors -- assuming those are applicable here). So (being in over his head) rather than confess his ignorance, he did what must have come naturally for him: he shat his (presumably male) pants, and told his co-worker to keep her trap shut.
- waterlesscloud 12y agoAre you seriously suggesting a Fed regulator at Goldman wouldn't know about something as basic as accredited investors?
- dreamweapon 12y agoBased on available evidence, it seems that there are two basic outlines that can be drawn around what transpired: (1) What the Goldmanite said was innocuous (and the regulator simply didn't know what to make of it -- i.e. yes, he must have not known about exemptions for accredited investors); or (2) What the Goldmanite said was potentially quite troubling (and the regulator knew it), for reasons we don't know yet (due to the missing context). Which it was, or even likely was, of course I cannot say. But the basic point is that the fact that the regulator tried to hush his colleague up in this situation is by itself quite troubling. Especially if it's part of a larger pattern. (2)
- tikhonj 12y agoMaybe I'm missing some context, but isn't that just an accurate statement of fact? There are, indeed, consumer protection laws that only apply to people who do not either make a certain amount of money per year or have a certain level of assets. This is the notion behind accredited investors[1], and I wouldn't be surprised if more esoteric laws have other similar sorts of exceptions. (There are definitely laws the deal with small businesses differently than with large corporations, for example.) [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor
- dreamweapon 12y agoThat is true (and definitely a valid point). But still, we have to wonder why the regulator tried to hush her up in that situation.