Goldman Sachs: The Culture of Success, by Lisa Endlich (HC, 1999, $3.50)
"The firm's spectacular ascent is traced in the context of its tenacious grip on its core values." Hmm....
That tenacious grip on core values looks a little weak these days. Let's see if I can count the ways. There are the accusations of insider trading, of accepting federal bail-out money from AIG to cover their own losses and of short selling of subprime securities, at the same time they are selling those same securities to investors expecting to make money.
I really liked the Rolling Stone's description of them as "a great vampire squid"!
And what do you think about the March letter from a resigning executive that describes the environment at GS as "toxic and destructive", and says the only thing that matters is how much money you make, not how well you treat your customers. He even says people at GS call their own clients "Muppet's"!
Oh my, to me it sounds like someone somewhere got too greedy. What do you think? Look for this on the new non-fiction table. (L-bus)
