Goldman Sachs And CEO Blankfein's Bleak Charm

It was only before the Securities Exchange Commission's civil suit over the Abacus 2007-AC1 deal that Goldman Sachs was CEO Blankfein's talisman. Today that juju seems far away from performing any more miracles to sustain Lloyd Blankfein's narcissism and charisma on the Wall Street. Born in Bronx and raised in Brooklyn's linden houses in a neighborhood with vast majority of occupants as working class, Lloyd Blankfein's salesman acumen and trading acuity shaped his destiny. From a commodity salesman in 1981, Blankfein rose to Goldman's hot seat in 2006. At a time when Goldman was acclimated to a banking style leadership at the top with Henry Paulson, co-COOs and Presidents John Thain and John Thornton, Blankfein was at odds to rein the company with a trading mindset. Blankfein's adeptness for profits through insistent style kept Goldman's bankers spellbound to his luminous spark even during the astounding credit crisis that quivered the global economy. Blankfein's leadership and modus operandi kept Goldman buoyant when sentiments on the main street were capsizing due to foreclosures. During this turbulent storm of emotions that had people's homes and hopes in its stride, Goldman was encapsulated by nobility in greed, a psychology of investment at the Wall Street that influences the financial and business environment at large.

With overconfidence as market maker and Abacus as smart money campaign, Goldman traded abnormal profit opportunities for plunge above and beyond fundamental risk. Creating and trading derivatives which were sub-par and certain to shake market sentiments through an incendiary bet, was like risk-return marriage that was sure to end in a divorce. For Goldman endorsing such malignant campaign to its customers certainly was a gambit on its 140 year old reputation. More than just a financial instrument, Abacus was a transactional loop for Goldman's investors that made them pay through their nose. A fallacy though but for CEO Blankfein, Goldman was doing 'God's work'. Today however the whole episode in substance appears to be not a question of numbers but an infringement of Goldman's customer sentiments and trust and violation of Wall Street's most valuable commodity called Information. A step further, this interlude post crisis seems to be a silent sin of abusing the legacy and hegemony of Wall Street as America’s economic and financial heart. 

On closer look, Goldman's status quo is a wake up call. For now, it is just litigation that neither has so far proven Goldman guilty nor seems like a situation of using Goldman as goad to financial reforms. However, somewhere midway the Goldman-SEC plea should be an elemental intention to restore the public confidence in operations at the Wall Street. The case should be a cardinal assessment of Goldman’s business practices and of similar other companies on the Wall Street that nurture hyper-competitive high fliers who desire to win at the cost of integrity and corporate morality.  CEO Blankfein's testimony before the congress in April had a different tune of Goldman's moral obligation to its customers. It somehow fails to conform to the company's corporate values and business principles that puts clients interest first, talks of reputations as asset and puts integrity and honesty at the heart of Goldman's business.

The questions that Goldman saga begets are strategic to common man's understanding of how the Wall Street operates in a scenario where each day, each bet is a scale of money vs. morality. Moreover, are corporate values today just an adornment for a company to attract Ivy League talent? Or is the CEO's role slowly drifting away from a corporate steward and leadership led by conscience to just a political and celebrity status? Goldman's catechism may take several months before we have exact answers. Meanwhile Goldman's board will have a tough run in its face lift against its customers for whom the company once represented long authentic innings in financial business. This would also impact the company’s current and near future ventures, one of them being the target date funds that would provide secured income in retirement years for middle class workers with 401(K) investments. Driving business in a sensitive target market, no doubt today will be challenging for Goldman, given the increasing skeptics of its reputation at the Main street.  These are few concerns for Goldman that serve as prelude to a financial reform at the Wall Street.

Also, at this point Goldman’s current corporate governance may sound like a safe bet for shareholder interests and value but may be predatory for a greater financial and societal good in the long run. Being the big daddy at the Wall Street, a better approach for Goldman may be to rethink its clout at the top. This is also in view of the watchdog set by the proposed reforms, which put consumer protection as a priority, shows implications of imposing the Volcker rule and tighter regulations on The OTC derivatives market which are the cash cows for big firms such as Goldman Sachs. While as it may take some time before the strife between the house-senate dynamics on financial reforms is actually framed into law, Goldman Sachs meanwhile should strategize for a shared responsibility at the top with clear distinction between leadership for business and guidance on regulatory affairs. It is imperative to understand that even if lawmakers are striving to groom Wall Street to a more ethical and economic friendly rearrangement, the big firms at the financial district need to resurrect and revamp their own governance for a better cohesion of what the government expects them to do and what the common man believes of them. More importantly, amid a hot debate on the viability of the financial reforms to bail out an ailing economy, we should not loose focus on Goldman and the aggregate of bungles that led to the current global economic milieu.
  

Copyright (c) 2009 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot  

Photo Courtesy: f-l-e-x-Flickr

Morality Is Character

Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing’. These great words are reflection of President Lincoln’s legacy of redefining republicanism and his invaluable infusion of morality in politics. His religious and philosophical beliefs are most respected even today, as is his significant contributions towards ending slavery through emancipation proclamation. Inspirational words from great people like Abraham Lincoln and many others are not just to fill up blogs, write papers or use them in an extempore but more importantly inculcate these in our thoughts and vision. 

Morality in simple words is the chastity of our heart, ethicality of our actions and rectitude of our mind. It is our conscience or that small inner voice that guides us through right and wrong. Commonly known as our superego, morality is mode of behavior that is formed during our early childhood years by internalizing teachings and trainings of our parents and teachers. However as we grow older learning through our own experiences and our immediate support group (other than the family) becomes our newer mode of moral development. Imbibing values through experiences or by means of inspirational success stories are life’s precious lessons that go miles in helping us adapt to our surroundings and situations in life. 

The emancipation proclamation of 1862, signed by President Lincoln, in my view is a great moral lesson. Abolition of slavery was not the reason behind President Lincoln’s holding the highest office in United States. However, implementing the abolition policy and making it a national goal became one of his presidential accomplishments. Keeping intact such moral psychology certainly seems like a challenge amid the allures and maneuvers of position, power and control in the field of politics. History reminisces the feelings of President Lincoln on signing the emancipation proclamation, "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper’’. This precisely illustrates the depth of his moral precept and the charisma of his character. Such altruistic mission motivates us to think and act differently.

There have been many great leaders whose integrity and individuality have personified a nation and its ideals. Fortunately for America, it was Abraham Lincoln. His leadership is an invigoration of hope that once again encourages us to get guided by intuitions and emotions to realize the actual purpose of our life, something that is beyond our routine goals. Capitalizing on virtues and shaping them as our core competencies bolsters our capacity to withstand any change or crisis in life. Getting motivated through moral values is also a form of intrinsic motivation which is a key aspect of self-coaching. Such inner reinforcement can never lessen or dry up. It is an internal reservoir that erects and evolves stronger reasoning and deeper intellect for shaping ethical temperament and human character.

Copyright (c) 2009 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
Photo Courtesy:  Barkha Dhar

Black History Month

The 4th of February indeed is a remarkable day to write this post as it’s the birth anniversary of Rosa Parks, ‘Mother of the Modern Day Civil Rights movement’. Her resistance to racial segregation back in 1955 has been auxiliary to the history of Social change in America. Her action that sparked the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott is one of the many notable and moving incidents of the American History and just not Black history.  The courageous acts of Thurgood Marshall, a Civil rights lawyer, who won the famous ‘Brown Vs. Board of education of Topeka(1954)’ case that ended the segregation between black and white kids in public schools, is yet another adjutant of America’s racial history. The phenomenal address, ‘Ain’t I a woman?’ by Sojourner Truth at Akron, Ohio back in the dark tunnels of time, and the unforgettable acts of so many other civil rights activists, all have been  incidents of evolution, metamorphosis and America’s rebirth on the racial map.

From its inception as Negro history week in 1926 to its current entity as black history month, this period is a celebration of freedom, identity, diversity, reverence and remembrance and most of all expression, opinion and action. Sometimes it’s hard to understand that what took America so long to end apartheid? Why did this nation and its children have to suffer for long because of their color? Why did America have to wait 55 years before they could choose a black president? I guess answer to these questions is voice bound and mind bound because any kind of discrimination is an antagonistic pattern provoked by morally repugnant minds. It’s also complicated to assess if the so called oppression or segregation has really ended or is it still hidden under political covers. Initiating a ‘Birthers movement’ against President Obama is one incident that could take us back to controversial coffee sessions or round table discussions. Moreover, why do our children still have to add their native race, ‘African, Latino Irish or Asian’ before they could introduce themselves as Americans?

In my view, history of any nation is just not about its industrialization, colonization or expansion. It is also about its people, their culture, their trials and tribulations, sufferings and emancipation. That’s what I would say American history is about, which seems to have a silent partake in the Black History Month. All the more, Black heritage is a saga of transition. It’s a tale not about the end of subjugation but the beginning of independence and a monarchy of self-reliance and equality, where no race is better than human race. Such egalitarianism in our thinking can infuse real change, which actually is an impending action of discharging ourselves from the shackles of bigotry to move forward towards humanity. To conclude, I would say America today is like a rainbow, which beautifies the sky with different shades. It is a nation just not of multiple races but of vivid colors. It however has to remember forever that Black History Month is also like that color spectrum, which  signifies one prominent color that made America what it is today, a nation founded on the beatitude of love, values and aspirations of dreams of million eyes that can be achieved and realized through one heart and one mind.

Copyright (c) 2010 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
Photo Courtesy: Photo Bucket