How Many Pinatas To A Pallet?

Rather than watching some very mediocre Chicago baseball in the evenings, I've been very interested lately in much more riveting theater--the replays of the U.S. Senate vs. Goldman Sachs, and the subsequent criminal investigation. At the crux of the argument is the question of whether Goldman should have told their customers, when selling these synthetic Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO's), that they were concurrently 'shorting' these cockamamie things, betting that their value would decline.

In craps parlance, this is called "betting the don't", meaning the 'don't pass' line on the dice table. But in this case, Goldman built the table a little slanted & the dice are loaded.

What a surprise--I found perverse pleasure in seeing these Goldman execs hemming & hawing & umming their way to non-answers when asked the theoretical questions about full disclosure. While beads of sweat were forming on the foreheads of these Harvard & Wharton business school grads, one could almost see the gerbil wheels in their minds spinning away, trying to collate what their lawyers told them they could answer versus what they were told they shouldn't answer. I loved it.

It does, however, bring up a rhetorical question about selling in general, and how stock/options/futures/crapola sales are different than what we do as produce people. In the digital boilerrooms of Wall Street, I highly doubt that the phrase 'repeat business' is even given a passing thought. Offer the deal, find a sucker-I-mean-customer willing to take it on, there's a wire transfer, and voila, it's done.

In this business? Hah. We are not only selling the product, whether it be blueberries, tomatoes or pinatas, but we are also representing ourselves, our company, our family, our dog, our cat and what our bird ate for lunch yesterday. At least it feels that way. And as far as disclosure, you had better know your commodity inside & out ("...well, these pinatas are three-legged offgrades...good candy inside though") because our customers have a way of remembering every single word uttered to them, and will recall it at a moment's notice, sometimes even to our disadvantage--imagine that. So I figure that if we can pass through that ring of fire, we're well on our way to another sale down the line.

It's such a blessing to be kept honest by our smart clients.

Later,

Jay