There has been a lot about cheating in the news lately, and on the surface, it seems to be about the money.
Last week, it was Alex Rodriguez. He is the best-paid player in baseball with a $252 million contract and has now admitted taking steroids. He said it was because he was young and foolish, but some theorize it was greed: he wanted to make sure he kept that pay package. Maybe.
A few months ago, it was Bernie Madoff, accused of losing $50 billion while running history's biggest Ponzi scheme. He lived high off the fees, and it seems that was about the money, too. But was it?
Then there was former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Prosecutors claim he tried to sell Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat, and told interest groups he'd push their agenda if they made campaign donations. That seemed to be about greed, as well. I'm not so sure.
I think all three, and others like them, wanted something even more intoxicating than money.
It was about the glory.
In A-Rod's case, he was already one of the best players in the game, and short of a true collapse, was going to get his quarter-billion dollars. But it seems he needed more -- he needed to be greater than great -- compared perhaps with the likes of Ruth and DiMaggio, so he took the shortcut of steroids to try to get there.
He had plenty of company. Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and others have all been accused of taking performance drugs. Unlike Rodriguez, these three could at least rationalize turning to steroids because they were getting older. If true, that's all the more proof this isn't about money. They were already rich, and even if fading a bit from age, were good enough to have stayed in the game. But they wanted to stay superstars.
As for Blagojevich, all you need to do is read excerpts of his conversations to pick up that there was more going on than selling influence; he has a huge ego and was on the glory trip of being a controlling kingpin.
I think some of those on Wall Street had the same mindset. It wasn't just about money for them, either.
Time magazine recently named the 25 people most to blame for the financial crisis. The top culprit is Angelo Mozilo, head of Countrywide Financial, one of the big drivers of the subprime craze. Mozilo made hundreds of millions in stock options, so clearly, he was on a greed trip, but he seemed to be on a glory trip, too. During the high years, he was a financial superstar, and many analysts have described his approach in words you could apply to those taking steroids. He lowered standards -- lending standards, in this case -- for the sake of short-term gains so he could deliver big results the easy way. It was all about flaunting showy stats through cornercutting.
Dick Fuld, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers, is on Time's same blame list for similar reasons. He made hundreds of millions by bundling subprime loans into bonds that were uber-profitable at first, but soon turned into toxic debt, taking the firm down with it. Why wouldn't he see the dangers? Because Fuld was more caught up in being a master of the universe. Why work for success if you can get it quick and easy?
As for Madoff, that also seemed to be brazen greed, but I'll bet there was more to it. Madoff was once chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange, and held in great admiration. Most analysts doubt he immediately started a Ponzi scheme when he opened his own investment firm. It's more likely, they say, that he did pretty good at first, got a reputation as a standout money manager, and then, when he faltered, couldn't let go of the glory. So, the theory goes, he began to cover losses thinking he'd come back the next year, but couldn't and eventually turned to outright fraud. Even if he indeed was a cheat from the start, by all reports, he enjoyed the esteem of being a financial guru. As much as money, that was likely his drug.
It is said that wanting glory can be a good thing. It motivates people to be achievers.
But from A-Rod to Wall Street, there's been a lot of wreckage from that in the last year.
You can want glory too much.
(mpatinkin(at)projo.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit The Providence JournalColumn
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