Shrink Rap: Dear Abby, It's Time to Apologize

An open letter to Goldman's Abby Joseph Cohen:

Dear Abby:

When I heard you were appearing on Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street last week as his special guest, I watched with interest, with the outside hope that perhaps you would finally apologize for making all those grandiose market calls during the go-go years.

You know the ones, Abby -- those bold and self-assured bullish pronouncements that encouraged investors to pile into every conceivable sector and stock, helping propel the market spacecraft to the moon.

Rukeyser began his introduction of you defensively, admitting he was deluged with email, protesting having you as his featured guest. With all your market calls that helped lead the lemmings out to sea, other viewers of the show were obviously still feeling the same disgust that I was for your part in frothing up the market fervor.

If that wasn't enough, Abby, Rukeyser then proceeded to make excuses for you. He said that your poor record was the result of the unpredictable terrorist activity and corporate fraud that brought the markets to its knees over the last three years.

Rukeyser asked rhetorically, how could Abby, as "brilliant" (his description) as you may be, be expected to take all of these exogenous events into account? His point was that you didn't have a crystal ball to predict these events.

Abby, the problem with Mr. Rukeyser's defense is that your market calls came before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. With the wealth of knowledge at your fingertips about companies and your understanding of accounting practices, I wish you had come out and waved a red flag if you knew things were getting out of hand.

You could have simply alerted the common investor to the mutually rewarding relationship between analysts and investment banking.