Goldman Sachs and Cycling Have a Few Things in Common

Cheating is a corruption, whether in an institution or by an individual, and corruption is all about winning at any cost whether it be in business, in banking, in sports or in government.

Lance Armstrong as a professional cyclist and Lloyd Blankfein as a professional banker share a lot of common characteristics:

Both Lance and Lloyd used illegal, immoral and unethical practices to amass large amounts of money and prestige;

Both had strong professional incentives to cheat because the rewards were worth the risk both in money and influence;

Both were affected by moral hazard:  "Moral hazard arises because an individual or institution does not take the full consequences and responsibilities of its actions, and therefore has a tendency to act less carefully than it otherwise would, leaving another party to hold some responsibility for the consequences of those actions."

Both were prestigious leaders, one in sports the other in banking, and both lost face when found out but neither one apologized or admitted any wrong doing in spite of causing great losses to others;

Both became very rich directly through their cheating;

Both were assisted in their cheating by enablers; the one by doctors, teammates and testers who looked the other way and the other by deregulation, by weak regulators and captured politicians;

Both used "exotic instruments" with which to cheat:  one with the use of EPO, Testosterone, HGH, Corticosteroids and saline, plasma and blood tranfusions; the other with CDOs, CDS, HFT and derivatives;

Not only did they both cheat the system, they cheated their teams, their profession, their clients and their country;

Both have extensive reports describing in detail their cheating behavior:  Armstrong in a USADA report and Blankfein in the FCIC Report and the Levin/Coburn Report;

Both have sued others and were themselves sued for their unethical and illegal behavior;

Both have put their respective professions at great risk of being considered failures;

Lance will probably enjoy future obscurity and we can only hope that Blankfein will too.

There seems to be a pervasive atmosphere around us of winner take all no matter what the costs to others.  There has been no demand that either admit their wrongdoing; their sophisticated cheating
corrupts absolutely and has gradually become acceptable and even receives accolades without any jail time whether in sport, in banking, in business or in government.