BusinessWeek’s Roben Farzad writes: Some day, when they write the definitive history of Goldman Sachs (GS), Wall Street’s 143-year-old warehouser of brass rings, the date March 14, 2012, will stand in infamy. If you haven’t already heard, that’s when Greg Smith, an executive with the bank in London, resigned with guns a-blazing, in a corporate revenge fantasy worthy of a sequel to Office Space. The 12-year veteran—he started as a summer intern during college—penned an op-ed in the New York Times that wasted zero time to cut to the damning chase…
Think about this for a moment, because, well, it is utterly unthinkable in the annals of Goldmandom. Cosa Nostra be damned, an executive decides to go out as publicly and bitterly as possible, foregoing what was likely a substantial exit bonus that would have been predicated on his signing a nondisclosure agreement. To go up against perhaps the world’s most powerful and connected financial institution, whose PR apparatus is now helmed by the former right-hand to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. A bank that is repped by more $1,000-an-hour attorneys than last spotted in the sprawling campus of lawyer hell. All while the Feds are still on Goldman’s case for the Sins of Subprime; the SEC is about to take action. You will almost certainly see Mr. Smith go to Washington.
In Wall Street terms, the Smith Manifesto (note to self: trademark last two sentences) will go down like the Emancipation Proclamation, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and Magna Carta all rolled into one…
Read more at http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-14/goodbye-to-goldman-will-blankfein-be-next
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