Leaking confidential information is clearly not okay, and good on Goldman for firing everyone involved.
That being said, look at how the government and regulators approach the tech industry: Words like "open," "distributed," "inter-operable," which have not just technical but philosophical meanings in the tech industry have no meaning to lawmakers or regulators. That's precisely because there's no revolving door bringing people with these perspectives from the industry into the government, where they can shape policy.
There's no particularly good solution to regulation, and I'm not convinced our status quo is worse than the alternatives. Most people do not believe you can achieve societal goals in a free-market without regulation. So you have some sort of regulation, and the question becomes: who are the regulators? A professional class of bureaucrats well-insulated from industries, or a class of practitioner-bureaucrats that move fluidly from industry to government and back? There's good and bad that comes with both options.
Did they fire everyone involved, or did they fire everyone who got caught? It wouldn't be shocking if their managers were aware and just careful not to get provably implicated.
I see where you're going with that, and it's particularly an issue in France, where most lawmakers seem extremely ignorant about anything technical. However, I'd rather live with that than with, say, regulatory capture by Microsoft. Having businesses and governments live in symbiosis is never a good idea.
>Most people do not believe you can achieve societal goals in a free-market without regulation.
>...who are the regulators? A professional class of bureaucrats well-insulated from industries, or a class of practitioner-bureaucrats that move fluidly from industry to government and back?
If you do subscribe to the premise of the first quote (i.e. that regulation is required) AND you accept the premise of the second quote (that those represent the only two choices), then it seems obvious that you have to go with the insulated bureaucrats.
Otherwise, you effectively have regulatory capture, which is to say, effectively, no regulation at best.
And, at worst, this capture represents no achievement of societal goals PLUS a distorted marketplace which further compounds societal problems.
This, versus imperfect or inefficient regulation, but regulation nonetheless.
What in that article has anything to do with information leaking between regulators and banks? That is an article about banks manipulating commodities prices by buying up vast quantities of them. Which is a good argument in favor of regulating the free market, but doesn't address the point I'm making.
Zerohedge is very spotty. And no, what's stated there isn't necessarily factual.
A case in point is a global car surplus post a few months back, which turned out (on pretty trivial research) to be using photos dating back many years, to the heart of the global financial crisis. It's only one case among many, but comes to mind.
That's not to say that there isn't occasionally some merit to ZH reporting, but you pretty much have to evaluate and assess each individual story on its own merits and based on independent verification.
I think there are both facts and speculation there, but they are clearly distinguished. I don't want to evangelize anyone, I just wanted to provide an alternative view for the author of the first comment I replied to. That maybe GS is not the good guy here that got rid of the black sheep. It may or may not be true.
I like looking from different perspectives. I'm OK with somebody having different perspective, but once in a while it's great to take a moment and "hey take a look how it looks from my point of view". Since I clearly have been received negatively, I'd love to learn more about your perspective, so any links providing info on how these allegations are false and how GS is doing mostly good things are welcome.
Have you ever heard the expression "He was being economical with the facts"? Court of law certainly have. It's why they expect people to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
"I said some things that were true" is very different from "What I said was true."
That being said, look at how the government and regulators approach the tech industry: Words like "open," "distributed," "inter-operable," which have not just technical but philosophical meanings in the tech industry have no meaning to lawmakers or regulators. That's precisely because there's no revolving door bringing people with these perspectives from the industry into the government, where they can shape policy.
There's no particularly good solution to regulation, and I'm not convinced our status quo is worse than the alternatives. Most people do not believe you can achieve societal goals in a free-market without regulation. So you have some sort of regulation, and the question becomes: who are the regulators? A professional class of bureaucrats well-insulated from industries, or a class of practitioner-bureaucrats that move fluidly from industry to government and back? There's good and bad that comes with both options.