Darkness and light

I was doing some reading earlier, I had just opened a copy of Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett. On the first page of the Story and its rather long Footnote he talks about how the crown survived by clinging on in the 

"sprawling, brawling, squalling consciousness of the city itself."

and that

"There are all kinds of Darkness, and all things can be found in them, imprisoned, banished, lost or hidden. Sometimes they escape. Sometimes they simply fall out. Sometimes they simply can't take it any more."

This spoke to me as earlier today I had watched a program on he Victoria Climbie murder and how she had been failed by various organisations that were supposed to help, and the news had had a fair bit about the Treyvon Martin case in Florida. As I watched the Program on Victoria Climbie I heard my dad say some very sickening things about the girls family, one was:

" These African Family's trade kids like Pokemon cards." and "All African kids need to be DNA tested to show that the people claiming to be their parents are, because the blacks use the kids to get benefits off the government." Now I know that Victoria's family were duped by the woman who killed her but to paint the population of an entire continent with the same brush because of the actions of a select few? That just isn't right.

I know that times of economic depression hardens the heart but this display of rampant racism and Xenophobia is getting a bit beyond the pale and even what I'm willing to tolerate, and I can tolerate a hell of a lot even to the point of taking the blame for another person's actions (especially if I love them). I understand that this is in the darkness of Britain and America's collective psyche, especially in the old Confederate states of which Florida is one, but its not in mine I am a great believer in total equality irrespective of race, colour, or creed. 

But there is darkness in all of us, and what we hide in there can either give us strength to carry on or destroy us and those we claim to love. Take myself as an example I have a thankfully short lived dependency in Codeine this has taught me a lot one of which is that I'm not as emotionally strong as I thought I was as I used it to cover the emotional pain I was in the cause of which was the amount of time I spent with people who honestly cared more for themselves that others, my family in short. This pain led me to almost kill my Ex-girlfriend, which along with the damaging relationship we had together that has negatively clouded my view of the motives of women to a degree, helped me understand that I was not the right person for her as I am naturally something of a lone wolf. Pretty ironic seeing that my Native American zodiac animal is that of the Wolf, I have little need for a huge social circle while Wendy needs at least one person around in order to feel totally safe.

Though ultimately life is not about darkness it is about light and the light is in all of us, we just need to look for it inside of ourselves and use it to guide us to that happiness we all seek. Be it in the arms of another, in a fulfilling career or a life of quiet contemplation, but in order to find that light we have to walk the dark paths for that is where the light shines brightest.

I hope you all find that light you seek, Brightest Blessings.

Steven

Not entirely to plan.

Well today was my first day back in college, or so I thought. The course I had enrolled on was something of a snafu with the computers, I'll admit that it was a little bit disappointing but not unheard of with college. I remember back on the Access to HE course that we had no idea where we were supposed to be properly for a week so this recent snafu was nothing new.

the day was no ta total let down though I ran into my Ex girlfriend Natalie while she was waiting for her boyfriend, I hope her luck with men changes soon her previous boyfriend (not me) was something of an abusive twat. She does deserve better and I hope this dude is it, I also met someone from the Oasis Christian Centre with whom I had a very good discussion about religion and the Vegan lifestyle.

but off the subject I have had some memories pop into my head over the last few days, one was of a certain black and white Guinea pig that decided to try and be a stunt pig an leap from my hands into the cage. Unfortunately he missed the doorway and landed on the open door himself and did a full back flip landed on is feet and looked around as if to say 'I meant to do that, Honest!' and the other was when I owned Wendy after an argument When she said the phrase 'I'm not talking to you.' and my reply was 'Do you want me to point out the futility of that statement?' to which her only come back was 'Fuck You!' I have been chuckling to myself over those memories for the past few days along with my catastrophic sneeze that made Wendy jump out of her skin when we were first together.

Well my next move is to wait for the new prospectus and enroll on the PTLLS course for the coming September.

Brightest Blessings
Steven

Responsibility.

Well today I reached 32, joy. while I did the usual Sunday things of cook lunch and watch the F1 Grand Prix. I was asked repeatedly to "help" Luke (my little brother) find different things which my reply to the one asking was. 'No I am not taking over another persons responsibility.'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZODMaH7R3Es
A little song to celebrate.

This got me thinking, about responsibility, over the past few years I have had many things put at my feet and told that they were my responsibility, some of which was and a hell of a lot more was not. An Example of this is my ex-girlfriends choice to replace my mother (Ironic this as it is also mothering Sunday). I already have a mother, yes she moved back to Germany, but that was her choice not mine and frankly more power to her. But I did not need to have a replacement, that choice was hers and hers alone I did not ask or force her to be that at all, so I will not take the responsibility for her actions at all and what so ever. Another is Luke I will not clean his room that is his responsibility, neither will I take the responsibility for anybody else' choices. I honestly can't the weight is something I cannot carry in order to continue as a human being and still function as a part of society.

Speaking of which my PTLLS course starts on Wednesday, this I am looking forward to as this means I am moving forward into the future I have decided to enter.

Brightest blessings to you all.
Steven

PS Isa also says to look inwars to your own actions and reasons to find the answers Wendy.

Inegrity

I was meandering around the internet looking for both a home and a job as is my wont at the moment and in my need for a break I looked at my Facebook page and found a link to the New York Times opinions page by the Robin Hood Tax people. I will paste it here for you.

 

Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

By GREG SMITH

Published: March 14, 2012

TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.

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Victor Kerlow

To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.

It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for 143 years. It wasn’t just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief.

But this was not always the case. For more than a decade I recruited and mentored candidates through our grueling interview process. I was selected as one of 10 people (out of a firm of more than 30,000) to appear on our recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world. In 2006 I managed the summer intern program in sales and trading in New York for the 80 college students who made the cut, out of the thousands who applied.

I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.

When the history books are written about Goldman Sachs, they may reflect that the current chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the president, Gary D. Cohn, lost hold of the firm’s culture on their watch. I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.

Over the course of my career I have had the privilege of advising two of the largest hedge funds on the planet, five of the largest asset managers in the United States, and three of the most prominent sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia. My clients have a total asset base of more than a trillion dollars. I have always taken a lot of pride in advising my clients to do what I believe is right for them, even if it means less money for the firm. This view is becoming increasingly unpopular at Goldman Sachs. Another sign that it was time to leave.

How did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.

What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm’s “axes,” which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b) “Hunt Elephants.” In English: get your clients — some of whom are sophisticated, and some of whom aren’t — to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like selling my clients a product that is wrong for them. c) Find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.

Today, many of these leaders display a Goldman Sachs culture quotient of exactly zero percent. I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.

It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail. Even after the S.E.C., Fabulous Fab, Abacus, God’s work, Carl Levin, Vampire Squids? No humility? I mean, come on. Integrity? It is eroding. I don’t know of any illegal behavior, but will people push the envelope and pitch lucrative and complicated products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or the ones most directly aligned with the client’s goals? Absolutely. Every day, in fact.

It astounds me how little senior management gets a basic truth: If clients don’t trust you they will eventually stop doing business with you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are.

These days, the most common question I get from junior analysts about derivatives is, “How much money did we make off the client?” It bothers me every time I hear it, because it is a clear reflection of what they are observing from their leaders about the way they should behave. Now project 10 years into the future: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly in the corner of the room hearing about “muppets,” “ripping eyeballs out” and “getting paid” doesn’t exactly turn into a model citizen.

When I was a first-year analyst I didn’t know where the bathroom was, or how to tie my shoelaces. I was taught to be concerned with learning the ropes, finding out what a derivative was, understanding finance, getting to know our clients and what motivated them, learning how they defined success and what we could do to help them get there.

My proudest moments in life — getting a full scholarship to go from South Africa to Stanford University, being selected as a Rhodes Scholar national finalist, winning a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics — have all come through hard work, with no shortcuts. Goldman Sachs today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about achievement. It just doesn’t feel right to me anymore.

I hope this can be a wake-up call to the board of directors. Make the client the focal point of your business again. Without clients you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm. And get the culture right again, so people want to work here for the right reasons. People who care only about making money will not sustain this firm — or the trust of its clients — for very much longer. 

I actually admire this man for his integrity in a business that has lost its own, of course being an investment Banker is not exactly the toast of the town but it has been an integral part of the worlds economy for a good century and has lost its way before. We all know about the wall street crash of 1929 this time though it was the investment banks that had failed us this time not the stock exchanges.

I am not the sort of person to judge if I can help it but this time I can't, over the past twenty to thirty years we have lost our way. The societies we all live in are ruled by greed and that is wrong we have no real moral compass in the west and the Abrahamic faiths have only been used to justify the greed of big business rather than be the champions of the poor and oppressed they have been in the past.

I am a pagan and I try my best to live by a simple creed, I don't always succeed but at least I endeavor to better myself. the creed I try to live by is not of viking origin but from the mid 20th Century, the Wiccan Reade. 

And it harm none, do what you will.

These eight words challenge you to do a number of things the most important of which is to define harm, I could go on for pages to explain this idea but I will let you do that for yourself. I would rather you look at your own neighborhood and see what you can do to help those who need it the most, that is what socialism is those who have helping those who don't have. I agree with Thomas Payne on that, our society has to bring the best out in all of us not the worst. We have failed both ourselves and our children if we don't change now and show the integrity we have inside us.

Brightest blessings

Steven