Fabrice Tourre, the central figure in the unfolding Goldman Sachs fraud story, bragged about selling Abacus bonds he knew to be garbage to “orphans and widows” seemingly chuckling to himself about what a clever young lad he is. However, others might view him as a greedy little weasel devoid of moral compass. Which is probably why Goldman hired him, he’s their kind of employee, you betcha. Fabrice will have an opportunity to explain his impish sense of humor to a Senate hearing this coming week.
I mean, not only is Tourre amoral, not caring who or what he hurts as long as he continues to slither his way up the Goldman corporate ladder, he’s also seriously stupid. You’d think a 27 yo, someone who grew up with the Internet, would know that nothing on it is private, including email. Apparently not.
Is there anyone out there who doesn’t think Goldman has thousands of employees just like Tourre – greedy, endlessly ambitious, and untroubled by ethical dilemmas.
I forget where, but I recently saw a piece arguing, only somewhat ironically, that this is precisely why these folks get the big bucks, not because they are the only people smart enough to do the work, but because they are the only ones who are sick and depraved enough to do the work.
Exactly. In a book about the history of Las Vegas, the authors quoted an FBI agent talking about the mobsters. He said, they aren’t smarter than other people, it’s just that they will do things other people won’t. In other words, sociopaths.