Are They Really That Good?

By James Kwak

The instinctive defense from Wall Street bankers is that they deserve the money they make: they're just that good. By that logic, Jon Corzine was the best of the best: he was the head of Goldman, after all (although in his days, if I recall correctly, Goldman and Morgan Stanley were roughly tied in prestige). The failure of MF Global may have had many causes, but it does make one wonder: Are the people at Goldman really that good individually, or is it the firm (and its reputation, and its information flow) that makes them so good?

Andrew Ross Sorkin speculates that MF Global got Goldman-style risk-taking without Goldman-style compliance and risk management. I would just add: they also got it without a Goldman-style too-big-to-fail government guarantee.

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