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'Essentially a Criminal Enterprise'

John Lanchester

I was talking last night to a financially literate man who was complaining about the level of knowledge the Senate was showing in its grilling of Goldman Sachs executives. ‘This stuff about making a market, they just don’t know what they’re talking about,’ he said. (Market-making is a standard financial-industry arrangement in which an entity keeps a market in business by acting on both sides of transactions, so that the commodities in question can always be both bought and sold.) ‘It just isn’t that big a deal.’ Then he took a sip of his wine and, quietly and thoughtfully and as if to himself, said: ‘Mind you, in my judgment Goldman is essentially a criminal enterprise.’

banks

Comments

  • 29 April 2010 at 10:33am
    marshmallow says:
    Another example of how the poor blokes in the financial services industry have come loose from their moorings.

    I was talking to my friend who works at Citigroup who said that the sense of entitlement (to bonueses etc) among his colleagues was stronger than ever and that could not work out what the fuss was all about.

    Is there a good novel that deals with this material? Please don't say Tom Wolfe. Joe O'Neill's Neverland was disappointing...