Greg Smith, Goldman Sachs executive, hands in his resignation in The New York Times.

The basic gist of it -

"I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It's purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client's success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.

It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as "muppets," sometimes over internal e-mail. Even after the S.E.C., Fabulous Fab, Abacus, God's work, Carl Levin, Vampire Squids? No humility? I mean, come on. Integrity? It is eroding. I don't know of any illegal behavior, but will people push the envelope and pitch lucrative and complicated products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or the ones most directly aligned with the client's goals? Absolutely. Every day, in fact."

I mean, why not? There was a time when the smartest people were in government. Let's bring it back. Here's how we're helping. Just click on the photo for the full view.

That's where the unions come in. Without the collective bargaining powers that unions bring as the only real offset to corporate greed and without the organizing strength unions bring to political action, there will be no counter-balance to corporate power. I promise that you will not like the result if our unions should disappear - even if you are not a union member.

When is our labour movement going to start fighting back?

Just over a week into the campaign and we have to say it's an amazing success. Extensive coverage on TV and radio, positive print articles, scores of blog reports and an opportunity for Smokey to appear on Lang and O'Leary. It's been an exceptional response for a union program. The launch of the Liberal anti tax cut ads and Harper's pro tax cut tour have been a happy coincidence...or should we take credit for that too?

Two key goals were to get people thinking about corporate tax cuts and test the use of social media. We seem to have succeeded on both fronts and the learning about social media will be extremely valuable.

If you're interested in hearing about what we've learned, please give me a call in a week or two. Right now we're focused on keeping the ball rolling.

Phil