Greg Smith’s (open) resignation letter to the New York Times accuses his former employers of caring more about money making than about its clients. In fact [the Bureau of Investigative Journalism]( http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/03/14/13-reasons-goldmans-quitting-exec-may-have-a-point/) decided to collate a selection of malpractice situations, one per year since 2003, mostly insider dealing from the local to the international, conflicts-of-interest and other forms of illegal trading. And these are only the ones in which they were caught. Others have pointed out the “revolving door” between Goldman Sachs and the US government for high-ranking officials.
“During the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis, Goldman was able to profit from the collapse in subprime mortgage bonds in the summer of 2007 by short-selling subprime mortgage-backed securities … The firm initially avoided large subprime writedowns, and achieved a net profit due to significant losses on non-prime securitized loans being offset by gains on short mortgage positions”…
**”Involvement in the European sovereign debt crisis**
Goldman is being criticized for its involvement in the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis. Goldman Sachs is reported to have systematically helped the Greek government mask the true facts concerning its national debt between the years 1998 and 2009 [which would have made it not eligible to join the euro]. … Lucas Papademos, Greece’s new prime minister, ran the Central Bank of Greece at the time of the controversial derivates deals with Goldman Sachs that enabled Greece to hide the size of its debt. Petros Christodoulou, head of Greece’s debt management agency began his career at Goldman Sachs. Mario Monti, Italy’s new prime minister and finance minister, who heads the new government that took over after Berlusconi’s resignation, is an international adviser to Goldman Sachs. So is Otmar Issing, former board member of the Bundesbank and the Executive Board of the European Bank. Mario Draghi, the new head of the European Central Bank, is the former managing director of Goldman Sachs International. António Borges, formerly head of the IMF’s European Department is a former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International. Peter Sutherland, former Attorney General of Ireland is a non-executive director of Goldman Sachs International. Karel van Miert, former EU Competition Commissioner is an ex-international adviser to Goldman Sachs.” [Wikipedia]( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs).
**The time of the Economic Para-State has arrived**
“Today, we are no longer dealing with feudal economies, national industries, or even regional interests. Today, the question is how the surviving economic forms will accommodate to the new dictates of international finance capital. Nothing escapes, as capital worldwide continues to concentrate in ever fewer hands—until even the nation state depends for its survival on credit and loans. All must beg for investment and provide guarantees that give the banking system the ultimate say in decisions. The time is fast approaching when even companies themselves, when every rural area as well as every city, will all be the undisputed property of the banking system. The time of the Para-State is coming, a time in which the old order will be swept away.” Silo, *Letters to my friends*, 1993
Under that dictates of the tyranny of the international financial system health, education, housing and the most basic human needs are left in the hands of for-profit private companies. But now everybody knows it.
There is a point at which one no longer feels angry when reading about the obscene bonuses and profits that pervade the banking system: the point at which numbers become meaningless. If at some stage money was presented as a measure of happiness we can now ask ourselves how much happier can one be going from a £50 million nest egg to a £70 million one? How much more endorphins can the brain secrete in response to another stratospheric play raise? But somehow the people who play this game believe in it even to the point of lying and cheating. Perhaps through education and some choices they have made in their lives they have taught themselves to become anesthetized both to their own emptiness and the suffering they create in the world. The only way they can continue playing this game is if *we* also believe in it.
The system is showing its naked dehumanisation and because it is now so blatant responses are today on their way. New humanists, *indignados*, the Occupy movement, various “springs” and many others, mainly networks of young people who reject the present system and raise different values: friendship, communication, empathy, a new spirituality, the protection of the environment and the connection between people across ethnic groups and cultures. The Universal Human Nation is being born, perhaps still invisible to the mass media but alive in the hearts of millions of people. Perhaps Greg Smith felt it too.
