[SeekAndFind]

Michael Lewis (born 1960) is an American contemporary non-fiction author and financial journalist. His bestselling books include The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, Liar's Poker, The New New Thing, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, Panic and Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood. He is currently a contributing editor to Vanity Fair.

[circlecity]

"The minute it becomes a public corporation there is this moral justification for bad behavior."

We certainly have different definitions of the word "moral".

[BipolarBob]

“Greed is good” Gordon Gecko

[DManA]

Spoken like a true communist. I can point out a dozen crooked “non-profits” right off the top of my head.

[kenavi]

Lewis is simply saying that the publicly-held corporation's only responsibility is to get its CURRENT shareholders the most return possible. Even if it means TOMORROW's shareholders will find themselves screwed, from the consequences of actions taken today.

Musical chairs governance.

How best to debunk this?

[chuckee]

Michael Lewis, formerly a Wall Street trader, is a good writer and has some pretty good insider looks at Wall Street. For a left winger he does try to keep his lefty editorialization out of his books. But that does not mean he will not slip and revert to left wing loon when he is asked his opinion. Looks like someone made the mistake of asking his opinion.

[DontTreadOnMe2009]

Goldman Sachs and the Art of “Ripping Your Clients’ Faces Off” !!!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2500879/posts

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Note: Goldman actually used the phrase

“ripping your own client’s faces off”

... in internal emails.

They were bragging.

About themselves.

Nice, huh?

For all of those who DO NOT live in NY nor work in the financial industry -— you should learn to know and fear these people. They earn billions using the method mentioned above, while many others struggle to get by. And they really don’t care.

That’s why they have mockingly named you “fly-over country”.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

If someone justifies a business decision because it is good for the 'shareholders' then you can be pretty sure you are being lied to.

If they claim the decision was made to maintain 'shareholder value' then you can be certain.

[chuckee]

We have all heard the old adage that everyone is a genius in a bull market.It used to be that Wall Street firms made beaucoup dollars during bull markets and the exceptional firms knew when the bubble burst to cut their losses and move to the sidelines.Once investment banks went public and were allowed to speculate with someone else’s money,i.e, shareholders money rather than their own, they morphed from banks whose primary profit lines were mergers and acquisitions fees, underwriting securities and to a lesser extent trading securities into fullscale speculative trading activities that were leveraged to the hilt.They went from running the roulette wheel to playing the roulette wheel.They no longer had the ability to discern when the bubble had burst and when to cut their losses until it was too late. Lehman, Bear Stearns, Merrill are all primary examples.