When we asked Dane Holmes, the head of investor relations at Goldman Sachs, why so few people trust big banks, he told us, “People don’t understand the banks,” because “there is a lack of transparency.” (Holmes later clarified that he was talking about average people, not the sophisticated investors with whom he interacts on an almost hourly basis.) He is certainly right that few students or plumbers or grandparents truly understand what big banks do anymore. Ordinary people have lost faith in financial institutions. That is a big enough problem on its own.
But an even bigger problem has developed—one that more fundamentally threatens the safety of the financial system—and it more squarely involves the sort of big investors with whom Holmes spends much of his time. More and more, the people in the know don’t trust big banks either.
....
Several financial executives told us that they see the large banks as “complete black boxes,” and have no interest in investing in their stocks.
A chief executive of one of the nation’s largest financial institutions told us that he regularly hears from investors that the banks are “uninvestable,” a Wall Street neologism for “untouchable.”
And why is that?
Do you really need an article for this?
Let's just apply basic logic:
Why would you ever be less than transparent about your balance sheet and operations?
Still having trouble figuring it out? Ok, I'll put it this way:
Nobody ever hides, obfuscates or says nothing when there is good news; they announce it loudly at every opportunity, whether it be in public filings, press releases, interviews or commercials run in the media.
It's not that tough.
