Monday 22 September 2008

Investment banking is no more

Like a dead parrot. I can't believe it. I'm going to try and concentrate on good news today - if I can manage it - but first this: Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have become regulated banks! I suppose investment banking will continue, but no longer as a separate business. And Goldman and Morgan are now subject to bank capital requirements.

I was going to write about Henry Ramallo at Neuberger Berman. He was saying that Goldman Sachs would not survive. Well, it has survived. But …

Maybe I should get out of this game. Return to the desert. I spent eight years in the desert. The golden years of my youth. Maybe I should stay in a cave until this all blows over. But for how many years? Five years? Ten years?

The desert is calling me. It wants to own me. It wants to take me.

O desert, your emptiness is so appealing! It matches the emptiness in my soul. The pain in my eyes. The cold money in my wallet. The shares that will not burn. O desert, come for me! Take me in your arms! That doesn't make sense. You don't have any arms. But who can make sense of anything right now? Maybe I will come to you. Get lost in your sand dunes. Find a nice warm cave. A campfire. The moon. The ghosts. My tears will dry in the wind. I will forget. I will forget. I will …

I need to be saved.