Managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,”

[gotsnowgotslush]

“It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off."
“‘Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors
refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail.”

"Even after the S.E.C., Fabulous Fab, Abacus, God’s work, Carl Levin, Vampire Squids?"

“....not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients.”
“It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them.”

Greg Smith- executive director and head of the Goldman Sachs U.S. equity derivatives business in Europe

New York Times
The Opinion Pages
Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
By GREG SMITH
Published: March 14, 2012

"I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity.
And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it."

"You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly in the corner of the room
hearing about “muppets,” “ripping eyeballs out” and “getting paid” doesn’t exactly turn into a model citizen."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs.html?pagewanted=all

“Hunt Elephants.” In English: get your clients — some of whom are sophisticated,
and some of whom aren’t — to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman Sachs.

"The other half of the problem is that the ultimate clients of Goldman are not truly represented. The large corporations,
the asset managers, the hedge funds, and mutual and pension funds are the immediate clients of Goldman, and they
are run by fund managers and the corporate officers who are acting in the same fashion as Goldman’s managers —
maximizing their own profits at the expense of their clients (the shareholders and investors).

STEVEN H. LIPSITZ
March 14, 2012
The Firestorm Over Goldman Sachs
The Opinion Pages
Letters
To the Editor:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/opinion/the-firestorm-over-goldman-sachs.html?pagewanted=all

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

A Jobs Bill That Will Provide Help, but for All the Wrong People

March 14, 2012

Jump-Start Our Business Start-Ups Act= JOBS act

Reopen our capital markets to exciting new start-ups!- by ridding protections for investors and stripping away disclosure requirements.
March 11, 2012

Jump-Start Our Business Start-Ups Act= Boiler Room Legalization Act

Under Sarbanes-Oxley, it was too hard and expensive for companies to go public?

JOBS act provision- IPO on-ramp, go public without having to comply with some of those rules for up to five years.

JOBS act provision- Let companies stay private longer by dramatically increasing the number of shareholders
a company can have before it has to file financial statements with the SEC.

JOBS act provision- facilitates advertising to unaccredited investors

Let companies use media advertising and direct mail to solicit accredited investors for private (unregulated) offerings.
(Today, the SEC prohibits the "public solicitation" of investors in private offerings, which can only be sold to accredited investors.)

2011 Goldman Sachs excluded U.S. investors from a private Facebook offering after the deal showed up in major newspapers.
Goldman Sachs feared the publicity may have violated the public-solicitation prohibition?

JOBS act provision- prevent state securities regulators from imposing registration or disclosure requirements on these companies.

Companies raise up to $2 million over the Internet from an unlimited number of investors, without going public.
An individual could not put more than $10,000 or 10 percent of his or her annual income into any single crowd-funded investment,
but could put that much into 10 different ones, thereby putting his or her entire income at risk in these unregulated securities.

Crowdsource!

JOBS act provision-weakens restrictions on analyst research
(restrictions for analysts who were publicly touting companies for whom their firms did investment banking, while privately disparaging them.)

Create a new category of "emerging growth companies" that could go public and be exempt from some SEC rules
for five years or until they exceed the size limits, whichever comes first.

JOBS act provision- Raise the number of shareholders a company can have before it has to register with the SEC and file financial statements
from 500 to 1,000 (or 2,000 for banks) and exclude from this number shareholders who get their stock from employee compensation plans.

JOBS act provision- Raise the limit on public stock offerings exempt from SEC registration under regulation A (a simpler, lower-cost option for small offerings)
to $50 million from $5 million and pre-empt state regulation of Reg A offerings sold on a national exchange or to accredited investors.
(According to analysis by Ernst & Young.)

The bill, HR3606, sailed through the House Thursday with 222 Republicans and 168 Democrats voting for it.
Only 23 members, all Democrats, voted against it. President Obama has endorsed the bill.

Dismantle the financial regulations put in place during Obama’s first year in office? Ready for another 2007-2008 Wall Street style meltdown?
{gsgs comment- What was in the drinking water and coffee that day?}

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/11/BUPU1NIGVF.DTL

 

[John Doe]

Was this supposed to be news?