Goldmansachs Head Revealed!

I just loved parts of Peggy Noonan's editorial in the Wall Street Journal today ("Look At The Time"), especially her identification of the dreaded Goldmansachs Head. The article doesn't have much to do with business ethics per se – because the affliction is not limited to people in business. Politicians tend to be chronically inflicted. 

She writes:

I think there is an illness called Goldmansachs Head.... When you have Goldmansachs Head, the party's never over. You take private planes to ask for bailout money, you entertain customers at high-end spas while your writers prep your testimony, you take and give huge bonuses as the company tanks. When you take the kids camping, you bring a private chef. Goldmansachs Head is Bernie Madoff complaining he's feeling cooped up in the penthouse. It is the delusion that the old days continue and the old ways prevail and you, Prince of Abundance, can just keep rolling along. Here is how you know if someone has GSH: He has everything but a watch. He doesn't know what time it is....

But you don't have to be on Wall Street to have GSH. Congress has it too. That's what the stimulus bill was about–not knowing what time it is, not knowing the old pork-barrel, group-greasing ways are over, done, embarrassing. When you create a bill like that, it doesn't mean you're a pro, it doesn't mean your a tough, no-nonsense pol. It means you're a slob.

That's how the Democratic establishment in the House looks, not like people who are responding to a crisis, or even like people who are ignoring a crisis, but people who are using a crisis.

Well said. 

Unfortunately, whether it was that bill or another somehow "more sensible" bill, it is still highly unethical for members of congress and the senate to initiate the use of force against others. 

Too bad there isn't more talk about the need for government ethics, and less business scapegoating from the President of the United States and others.