The University and Wall Street

PAW’s Dec. 14 On the Campus column was dismaying enough. How best to respond? Occupy Princeton did it best, delightfully deconstructing Wall Street’s crimes in its YouTube video. To Occupy’s eloquent statement, I’d add the subheads in investment adviser Leland H. Faust’s op-ed, “Wall Street is a raw deal for the 100 percent” (San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 29).

They are: the cult of a Wall Street superstar, gambling disguised as investing, the bail-me-out syndrome, enormous conflicts of interest, leverage on a grand scale, failure of regulators and the reform law, misappropriation of client funds, worthless rating agencies, golden parachutes soaring high, and breakdown of morality.

Perhaps, before graduating, Princeton seniors should take a cautionary refresher course in ethics, to be taught by professors Peter Singer, Cornel West *80, and Robert George.