The rats are finally leaving the vampire squid

Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

By GREG SMITH

Published: March 14, 2012

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TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — 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.

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Victor Kerlow

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• Goldman Sachs Responds

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To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.

It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for 143 years. It wasn’t just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief.

But this was not always the case. For more than a decade I recruited and mentored candidates through our grueling interview process. I was selected as one of 10 people (out of a firm of more than 30,000) to appear on our recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world. In 2006 I managed the summer intern program in sales and trading in New York for the 80 college students who made the cut, out of the thousands who applied.

I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.

When the history books are written about Goldman Sachs, they may reflect that the current chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the president, Gary D. Cohn, lost hold of the firm’s culture on their watch. I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.

Over the course of my career I have had the privilege of advising two of the largest hedge funds on the planet, five of the largest asset managers in the United States, and three of the most prominent sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia. My clients have a total asset base of more than a trillion dollars. I have always taken a lot of pride in advising my clients to do what I believe is right for them, even if it means less money for the firm. This view is becoming increasingly unpopular at Goldman Sachs. Another sign that it was time to leave.

How did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.

What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm’s “axes,” which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b) “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. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like selling my clients a product that is wrong for them. c) Find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.
more here

another whistleblower letter?

This could be a hoax, we shall see as there is nothing here that readers of this site,  zerohedge, Max keiser and TF metals report didn't already know but its worth documenting here as I am sure it won't stay there long.

see link below

comments.cftc.gov/PublicComments/ViewComment.aspx?id=57019&SearchText

COMMENT FOR PUBLIC INFORMATION COLLECTION 77 FR 8817

• View all comments for 77 FR 8817
• From: Z A N
  Organization(s):JPMorgan Chase
  Comment No: 57019
  Date: 3/14/2012
  Comment Text:

  Dear CFTC Staff,
  
  Hello, I am a current JPMorgan Chase employee. This is an open letter to all commissioners and regulators. I am emailing you today b/c I know of insider information that will be damning at best for JPMorgan Chase. I have decided to play the role of whistleblower b/c I no longer have faith and belief that what we are doing for society is bringing value to people. I am now under the opinion that we are actually putting hard working Americans unaware of what lays ahead at extreme market risk. This risk is unnecessary and will lead to wide-scale market collapse if not handled properly. With the release of Mr. Smith’s open letter to Goldman, I too would like to set the record straight for JPM as well. I have seen the disruptive behavior of superiors and no longer can say that I look up to employees at the ED/MD level here at JPM. Their smug exuberance and arrogance permeates the air just as pungently as rotting vegetables. They all know too well of the backdoor crony connections they share intimately with elected officials and with other institutions. It is apparent in everything they do, from the meager attempts to manipulate LIBOR, therefore controlling how almost all derivatives are priced to the inherit and fraudulent commodities manipulation. They too may have one day stood for something in the past in the client-employee relationship. Does anyone in today’s market really care about the protection of their client? From the ruthless and scandalous treatment of MF Global client asset funds to the excessive bonuses paid by companies with burgeoning liabilities. Yes, we at JPMorgan that are in the know are fearful of a cascading credit event being triggered in Greece as they have hidden derivatives in excess of $1 Trillion USD. We at JPMorgan own enough of these through counterparty risk and outright prop trading that our entire IB EDG space could be annihilated within a few short days. The last ten years has been market by inflexion point after inflexion point with the most notable coming in 2008 after the acquisition of Bear.
  
  I wish to remain anonymous as of now as fear of termination mounts from what I am about to reveal. Robert Gottlieb is not my real name; however he is a trader that is involved in a lawsuit for manipulative trading while working with JPMorgan Chase. He was acquired during our Bear Stearns acquisition and is known to be the notorious person shorting in the silver future market from his trading space, along with Blythe Masters, his IB Global boss. However, with that said, we are manipulating the silver futures market and playing a smaller (but still massively manipulative) role in manipulating the gold futures market. We have a little over a 25% (give or take a percentage) position in the short market for silver futures and by your definition this denotes a larger position than for speculative purposes or for hedging and is beyond the line of manipulation.
  
  On a side note, I do not work directly with accounts that would have been directly impacted by the MF Global fiasco but I have heard through other colleagues that we have involvement in the hiding of client assets from MF Global. This is another fraudulent effort on our part and constitutes theft. I urge you to forward that part of the investigation on to the respective authorities.
  
  There is something else that you may find strange. During month-end December, we were all told by our managers that this was going to be a dismal year in terms of earnings and that we should not expect any bonuses or pay raises. Then come mid-late January it is made known that everyone received a pay raise and/or bonus, which is interesting b/c just a few weeks ago we were told that this was not likely and expected to be paid nothing in addition to base salary. January is right around the time we started increasing our short positions quite significantly again and this most recent crash in gold and silver during Bernanke's speech on February 29th is of notable importance, as we along with 4 other major institutions, orchestrated the violent $100 drop in Gold and subsequent drops in silver.
  
  As regulators of the free people of this country, I ask you to uphold the most important job in the world right now. That job is judge and overseer of all that is justice in the most sensitive of commodity markets. There are many middle-income people that invest in the physical assets of silver, gold, as well as mining stocks that are being financially impacted in a negative way b/c of our unscrupulous shorts in the precious metals commodity sector. If you read the COT with intent you will find that commercials (even though we have no business being in the commercial sector, which should be reserved for companies that truly produce the metal) are net short by a long shot in not only silver, but gold.
  
  It is rather surprising that what should be well known liabilities on our balance sheet have not erupted into wider scale scrutinization. I call all honest and courageous JPMorgan employees to step up and fight the cronyism and wide-scale manipulation by reporting the truth. We are only helping reality come to light therefore allowing a real valuation of our banking industry which will give investors a chance to properly adjust without being totally wiped out. I will be contacting a lawyer shortly about this matter, as I believe no other whistleblower at JPMorgan has come forward yet. Our deepest secrets lie within the hands of honest employees and can be revealed through honest regulators that are willing to take a look inside one of America's best kept secrets. Please do not allow this to turn into another Enron.
  
  Kind Regards,
  -The 1st Whistleblower of Many

What more evidence do you need of a rigged absurd market than the action today?

Todays action saw  a broad sell off of "risk" assets all because Bennie didn't print.
Yet if one can believe it the economic reports out of the US were rosy.
So the economy does well but without more free money and additional leverage the market sells off.
Says it all really.

Gold and silver smack down

Gold  and silver got whacked today.

Personally I am using this as a buying opportunity.
This wreaks of a coordinated attack as the dump started right after Bernanke hinted that there would be
no more QE with his speech. Anyone who thinks QE will stop any time soon is in for a rude awakening.
I am buying the f*cking dip.
I am going to include a video I have just viewed where Lyndsey Williams a supposed insider of the elites talks about what his insiders have told him about what is coming down the road. He has been quite accurate in the past about what is coming. Some of his comments about Abiotic oil and divine manifestations may be a bit off the mark, who knows but certainly in regards to the economy and geopolitical events he has been accurate.
In this video you will see how important holding precious metals may indeed be.
It holds with my own view that you keep PMs to transfer into any new currency or system after this one dies.
Take from it what you will

It is rather long and if you search under YOU tube you can find it split into shorter segments.
I also attach this interview he did

I have also attached the script he references here.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2002/20021121/default.htm

I am not saying that what he says is true that the FED will devalue the US dollar by 40 percent but I think its  a strong possibility

Another must listen

Excellent report from Jim Sinclair aka "Santa"

I agree 100 percent with what he says and that why I hold Gold
I believe currency collapses/hyperinflation in the current system can happen when there is a total loss of confidence in the system and that is what is happening and regardless of QE I believe that holding equities is dangerous at this time. What we have is basically a sovereign debt bubble which was transferred from private debts in 2008. When it bursts the entire system goes with it and that will take down currencies and equities.
The only thing left standing will be phyical assets such as gold, debt free property and debt free land

Excellent one of the most uncanny movies of our time

If you havn't seen They Live then I suggest you do.
Its uncanny how close to our own reality the movie is.
Am I saying we have aliens in our midst who pose as leaders?
Who knows, but when I watch Obama, and most of the worlds so called leaders I cannot feel that if I had those glasses..............
One thing is for sure they are not human. Not human in regards to most humans having empathy with others and morals. These are narcisstic sociopaths who only serve their clients, BIG banks and big corporations!!!
No they do not serve YOU

Unelected Technocrats

Its over Folks.
Democracy or even the thin veneer we had has gone, at least for the people of Italy and Greece it has.
Unelected technocrats rule the roost.
Oh and it sheer coincidence that the unelected Pms here just happen to
have connections to Goldman Sachs.
Yep just coincidence and also just coincidence that sacks of Gold would also be one of the biggest losers if Italy and Greece do default.
I think its safe to say that Goldman Sachs do run the world.

Again why is this man not our prime Minister

Instead of this voice of reason we have someone whose own life experience is giving sexual favors to future bankers behind the bike sheds of Eton.

We have been duped like the US
We wanted change and have ended up with the same bullshit, a puppet who bows down to special interests.
Cameron is indeed a slight improvement over Brown and Blair but then who wouldn't be.
An Amoebae with brain damage could have done a better job.
Its a disgrace that we have only got one adult willing to speak the truth in the whole country or even the entire world it seems
Its time  now that people need to choose which side they are on.
The side of common sense and decency like Farrage or the side of the voodoo Keynesians who think they can cure debt with  more debt and  money printing who are nothing more than lackeys for bansters.
Mervyn King and the money printers will do well to read this for it is their heads that will end up on the ends of pitchforks when this does blow sky high
I'll say this again so EVERYONE gets it
The system in its present form requires exponential growth to function. We have reached the limits of that growth on a finite planet. We need an adult who is willing to face up to this not a retard who clamors about the need for more growth on a finite planet.
Indeed that is our environmental problem right there, not C02 clap trap but a system that grows for growth sakes.
Thats why  most of the world is now a concrete building site in our incessant need for more "growth".
An alien from another planet who came here would find it quite strange that we built things just to keep us busy and to keep bankers in bonus.
We are a stupid race if we do not face up to this and like other stupid species we will fail if we do not stop this bullshit, but tragically we will take the entire planet with us

Mike Maloney explaining our money system again

In frequent conversations with other people I try to convince them that all money ise debt Ie its loaned into existence. They refuse to believe it thinking I am just a conspiracy theorist.
Its abhorrent but its the truth. Currency is first issued with a bond a debt instrument.
I truly believe that is why JFK was assassinated, he wanted to  create debt free money issued directly by the government

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/michael-maloney-we-pay-tax-privilege-have-currency

OUTRAGEOUS: Banks think they are above the law, make their own laws up

People arrested for closing accounts? Fascist police officers on the side of the big banks.
I had no idea closing an account was illegal and they were not conspiring to organize a run on the bank
they just individually wanted to close their account.
WHO DO THESE SUITS THINK THEY ARE?
They act worse than loan shark mafioso
This is unreal, please circulate far and wide