So I’ve been friending Baruch classmates on Facebook as part of trying to build my list of connections as I work on building this site, right?  You people rock, by the way.  There was this one guy who struck me as being a pretty cool, with-it, upstanding type of guy, but I don’t know him and really have no information to really have an opinion about him one way or the other.  Well yesterday, there it was in my feed on Facebook:  “####### likes Goldman Sachs.”  WHAT?  Are you kidding me?  You actually LIKE Goldman Sachs?

I came to Baruch with a bunch of business credits thinking I would work towards an MBA.  My second semester I took a Sociology class that blew my mind.  A few years later I’m writing blog posts like this one.  What happened to me?  Don’t I still want to make a lot of money?  Yeah, I do.  I just don’t think I need to do it in a way that is at the expense of the well being of others.  David Brooks, a conservative op-ed columnist for the New York Times writes in his column today:

This spectacle presents Goldman with an interesting public relations choice. The firm can claim to be dumb but decent, like the rest of the establishment, and emphasize the times it lost money. Or it can present itself as smart and sleazy, and emphasize the times it made money at the expense of its clients. Goldman seems to have chosen dumb but decent, which is probably the smart narrative to get back in the establishment’s good graces, even if it is less accurate.

This stuff makes me crazy.  Can’t we have it all?  I’m not sure where this clicked in my head, but I believe I got from President Obama a message that people can be fairly treated in a competitive society.  Can we be successful and care about the world around us?  I say yes.  But I’ll tell you I often find myself the cynical optimist.  If I had a ton of money would I give it to Goldman Sachs to invest?  Probably not.  I recently switched my banking to a credit union so I could avoid ever banking using a for-profit bank.  If you know me,  you know my schpiel on mortgage points.  But I realize I go to school with people that idolize and aspire to be part of organizations like Goldman Sachs and that’s a little unsettling.

Lloyd Blankfein is scheduled to testify today before Congress and I saw on the news that they expect the New York Stock Exchange to be silent while it goes on, and trading to be reduced today because of it.  Yesterday, 1 Democrat voted with 40 Republicans to block a debate on the financial reform legislation.

It’s a very odd time to be attending Baruch, because more than ever, I sometimes question my association with a business school with a mediocre reputation for honesty and integrity.  When the Professors come and tell you that they hear Baruch’s reputation isn’t great… well it can be demotivating to say the least.

What do you think of the current issues with the financial system and the efforts to reform it?  Do you think Baruch does an adequate job of presenting itself as an institution that produces graduates with high morals, honesty and integrity?

You can sound off in the comments below, or submit an article post to posts-at-ibaruch.org.  (As always, anonymous submissions are not accepted.)