I’m very proud and excited to let you all know about my newest venture: Wall Street 50 . This will be a public Quest to show the world that there are Conscious Capitalists on Wall Street. This started stirring in my heart over a year ago but it became even more clear to me in the last few months and once Occupy Wall Street showed up my resolve was locked in.
I have wanted to tell the world about my experience with a very different Wall Street then the one the media has focused on. I know generous, kind and smart Wall Streeters. I’ve had the pleasure to know and work with them. I have proof there are conscious financiers out there because I’ve met them. There are many that are doing amazing work for this world and have incredible solutions for what we now face. Its time to hear about them and from them. Why?
1.) To stop the stereotyping.
2) To stop the theory that capitalism = corruption, because it doesn’t.
3.) To show the world these good guys & gals exist.
4.) To have them name names and clarify what those in finance, government and the rating agencies did so we can ask for specific & powerful change.
5.) To hear their solutions to fix this debacle.
I hold the media responsible for creating Occupy Wall Street. They poured fuel on this Nation’s wound by their unbalanced & unfocused coverage. Instead of educating us on what truly happened three years ago (plus) and helping us to understand who the real wrong doers are they instead offered up a cheap and lazy alternative. They’ve sold us the story of “Us vs. Them.”
This story ain’t simple. It’s a bitch to figure this thing out. I’m still trying to. Truth is complicated. It isn’t always black and white. And we are a fast food nation. We like it spoon fed to us in 90 second sound bites. So maybe in the end the media just gave us what we wanted. But don’t they have a responsibility to inform us of what we must know whether we want it or not?
Aren’t there Wall Streeters that need to be held accountable?! Duh! Of course there are! Aren’t there changes that need to be made? Of course there are! Any Wall Streeter will tell you the same! And actually if we were listening there were plenty of them that were warning us to wake up way back before it was trendy and cool! Take a look at John Bogle who has been writing about this for years. The media didn’t report what these guys had to say, now did they? And maybe we would have been too busy parading around in our Emperor’s New Clothes back then anyway even if they had. What with our second and third mortgages, new cars and pools that we couldn’t afford to keep us busy.
So the media kept telling us what we wanted to hear instead of what we needed to hear. And now with the party having ended in chaos and confusion they still over simplify it and divide us up with this “Them Vs. Us” story, which gets us nowhere fast. Where’s is today’s Woodward & Bernstein’s for this story? Watergate started out complex too but those boys pulled it apart and MADE us understand it.
A responsible media would explain all the parties that participated in this mess including the more complicated rating agencies part, and the names of the government officials that were asleep at the wheel and yes the names of those on Wall Street that did us all wrong including their own. I bet ya if they had we actually might have a few of these folks in jail right now.
But I digress…
Please join Samir Selmanovic (my co-journeyman) and I on our Quest for 50 Conscious Financiers.
If you are one or know one please email me at kim@thewallstreetcoach.com.
