Mark Gongloff: Greg Smith Book: Goldman's Transactions Became 'Morally Ambiguous'

Mark Gongloff: Greg Smith Book: Goldman's Transactions Became 'Morally Ambiguous'

"Michael Lewis, in his book "The Big Short," writes about a former Oppenheimer & Co. trader called Danny Moses. It's instructive for what it says about how savvy traders see their relationships with Wall Street banks:
When a Wall Street firm helped him to get into a trade that seemed perfect in every way, he asked the salesman, "I appreciate this, but I just want to know one thing: How are you going to fuck me?"
Heh-heh-heh, c'mon, we'd never do that, the trader started to say, but Danny, though perfectly polite, was insistent.
We both know that unadulterated good things like this trade don't just happen between little hedge funds and big Wall Street firms. I'll do it, but only after you explain to me how you are going to fuck me. And the salesman explained how he was going to fuck him. And Danny did the trade."