By Tribune-Review

Published: Tuesday, December 11, 2012, 8:53 p.m.
Updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Wrong on Blankfein

I'm always amazed at Joseph Sabino Mistick when he writes about subjects that he has little knowledge of. His column “Honest work” (Dec. 2 and TribLIVE.com) was one of the worst offenders.

Besides his misstatements about Lloyd Blankfein's expertise on employment, Mistick also goes on to denigrate his work ethic. Blankfein started at Goldman Sachs 30 years ago as a commodities trader. To reach the CEO position, Blankfein would have had to work 60 to 80 hours a week for years in an ultra-stressful environment, taking very little vacation or time off. I know — I did that job myself for 20 years at three major investment banks.

I doubt very much that many of those construction or assembly-line workers that Mistick praises in his column could have borne up under the pressure or the burnout rate that Blankfein had to deal with for most of his career.

Also, Goldman did not get a TARP bailout to keep it “afloat.” If Mistick would have checked, he would have seen that Goldman was always very profitable. The Obama administration asked Goldman to take bailout money in order to not single out those firms that had not been profitable and needed the bailout. Please do some fact checking!

Jay W. Sukits

Franklin Park

The writer is a University of Pittsburgh professor of finance.

There are currently no comments for this story.

1. Pens’ bad days
2. Email yes, guns no
3. Wrong on boxing
4. Judicial ‘favor’-itism?
5. Really dragging us down III
6. Which ‘enemies’?
7. Really dragging us down I
8. Really dragging us down II
9. Jeannette’s challenges
10. Puzzling priority
11. Top pick: Class act

Subscribe today! Click here for our subscription offers.