From Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone article on Goldman Sachs (available on Scribd, not the Rolling Stone website):
The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.
It’s a great read and there are passages I agree with. But I also think the opening I’ve quoted strays awfully close to classic anti-Semitism.
I don’t believe in a global Goldman Sachs conspiracy. Rather, it has been very successful at hiring and developing an undue share of smart people, who have generally been better at exploiting the system than anyone else. That has malign consequences, but the faults are systemic, not particularly to do with one institution.
Doesn’t mean you should forgive them though. Yes, they’re genetically engineered to barbarically exploit. No, that doesn’t make it okay.
Symbiotic relationships turn parasitic when the host is unable to exchange or remove its partner.
Goldman Sachs is hardly unique (Enarques, Jesuits, McKinsey, Skulls and Bones, …). It was so successful in the power game that no countervailing power can interfere with their unethical behavior.
With 100 % certainty, they are no vampires, as the looting proceeds in broad day light, which hopefully mobilizes others to stop their behavior. French politics is an example how hard it is to evict a misruling elite. These guys have covered all bases, after all.
PS I wonder why often the least smart among the elite group ends up in the top job (Bush, Geithner).
Thanks Lance. You are the first person to say what I’ve been thinking about Taibbi’s piece. There’s stuff in there that “strays awfully close to classic anti-Semitism” and it curdles my stomach.