Modeling Journey

Take a good look at this man. He is Lloyd Blankfein: chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs.

And what does he do? In his words (November 2009 interview with The Sunday Times of London):

He is, he says, just a banker "doing God’s work".

And now the SEC has laid a civil charge of fraud against Goldman Sachs for structuring a deal for one client, being paid a fee, selling derivative instruments to other clients, and having the first client bet that the derivatives will fail.

Let's start at the beginning.

Just who is Goldman Sachs?

This is The Sunday Times journalist's description of the venerable US investment bank, based at 85 Broad Street, New York:

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Having decided not to run again, Senator Dodd seems to have also left his courage at the door of the Senate committee he heads, and decided to table a watered down, relatively toothless bill to cure the root causes of the financial meltdown the American financial system faced a short while back:

"Americans are frustrated and angry, as we all know," Dodd, D-Conn., said. "They've lost faith in our markets, and they wonder if anyone is looking out for them."

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President Obama held a press conference one day after the Republicans whipped the Democratic candidate for the senate seat of Massachusetts, sending that candidate (and the Democractic Party) into a tizzy.

That tizzy was shared by Obama, who somewhat belatedly threw his weight behind the Democratic candidate last week, but could not prevent the historic upset.
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The MYM movement is gathering more support in the USA, with the latest salvo coming from Maher:

"That's right, I'm talking to all of you that keep doing your banking at the giant, too big to fail, Wall Street banks that brought our economy to the brink of disaster, were rescued by trillions of dollars of our taxpayer money, then paid us back by using that money to hire lobbyists to convince our lawmakers in Washington to kill financial reform.

They took our money... but cut back on lending.
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Because of three letters: MYM.

That stands for Move Your Money.

And that stands for a citizens' protest movement in the USA that is snowballing, and gathering supporters who feel that the powers that be have failed ordinary Americans by not handling the banking crisis correctly, allowing the fat cats to start paying monstrous bonuses again, and simply disregarding common sense and ordinary virtues, such as punish the guilty, not the innocent (taxpayers).
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In a typical Sarkozian move, the French president has taken the EU recommendations for curbing financial turmoil in the future one step further with some very practical measures:

"Mr Sarkozy unveiled a series of measures aimed at tightening French rules on banking pay and improving the disclosure of bonus payments.

These include deferring traders’ bonuses over three years, paying one-third of awards in shares, and imposing strict long-term performance criteria in order to receive full payment. The government has also appointed bonus watchdogs at banks that have received state aid.

Top French banks including BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole have signed up to the new rules.

The measures take recommendations on traders’ pay made at the G20 summit last spring a step further. Under those guidelines, guaranteed bonuses are to be banned, payment deferred over several years and the cost of risk must be included in remuneration policy."

I would like the Liberal Party to include these proposals in their policies.

Shareholders and ordinary Canadians need to be protected against any future meltdown caused by bonus systems in financial institutions encouraging managers of banks and their boards of directors to take massive risks, with consequences for ordinary Canadians' RRSPs and personal wealth.

Also, the Liberal Party should lead the way with proposals for substantially beefed up regulatory oversight, and fast and effective prosecution of criminal fraud and other financial illegal activities. Canada has the reputation of being a backwaters country when it comes to securities regulation and enforcement, and this should stop.