What Goldman employees never ever think about is the geopolitical response of people having that yardbrush rammed up their economic backside. They never think about the point at which citizens snap, and storm Bastilles. They never think about the social effects of unemployment and ruination. These are the Undead who invent oxymorons like ‘jobless recovery’. The people who lost the plot years ago, and see the human race entirely in the context of its ability to consume goods and watch circuses. For them, the idea that the People come first long ago became an alien concept clung to by ‘saps’.
But at the level below them, the quants and packaging folks continue to sell whisky to the Indians, sorry, Native Americans. I’ve met this lot frequently, because by accident I drifted into financial marketing communications during the 1977-1999 period. They are more muddled and mentally adrift than any other group I’ve come across with the exception of Islamists. You tell them what the result of doing something will be. They ignore you. It happens. You remind them. They say, “No, you don’t understand….we made a small assumption in Chart 57, but we’ve ironed that out now, so everything will be fine next time”. I used to watch their backs leaving meetings, to see if I could detect the wiring beneath those dandy Brooks Brothers suits.
They will never change – and they’re still at it, even in the current environment.
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