Doing the wrong thing

I have previously written about the IMDB scandal in Malaysia involving Goldman Sachs. But that story just continues to show how bankers do not take responsibility as reported this week in the Financial Times. At the time that Goldman reached several settlements, it announced that it would also claw back bonuses paid to individuals either directly involved in the IMDB transaction or in senior positions of responsibility at Goldman when the transaction occurred. As noted in the Financial Times, Gary Cohn “is holding out on the bank’s request for him to return millions of dollars of his pay.”

I suspect his decision is not due to lack of the ability to repay. In the Goldman Proxy Statement of 2015 (he resigned to work for the Trump administration in 2016), it was noted that from 2013 to 2015 Mr. Cohn earned just under $60 million. A rather tidy sum. To put it in perspective, Mr. Cohn’s earnings over those years were equal to the average income of about 30,000 households in Malaysia. Those are the households whose taxes will be used to pay in part for the missing billions.

So as noted in the Lex column in the Financial Times on 3 December, “Sometimes a polite request is not enough.” What will it take for Mr. Cohn not to continue to do the wrong thing? I suspect 30,000 Malaysian households would want to know.