Goldman, Goldman Everywhere

What could be worse here is that this is the one item leveled as actual, earnest criticism.

What they don't mention are any legitimate criticisms or questions and they do exist, despite Mr. Thain's readily apparent skills and strengths. "Mr. Fix-It," as Forbes referred to him in a headline leaves his head post at the New York Stock Exchange with two recent acquisitions not fully digested and still stand as open questions, as The Wall Street Journal points out.

(The Journal, it also bears mentioning, does give Thain totally premature credit for being like James Dimon of JPMorgan and Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers. Time for a cold shower, Journal.

As even Forbes points out in the article calling him Mr. Fix-It, the NYSE has lost market share. Hmmmmm....

Business Week makes the excellent point that Thain, known as a technocrat, has never gotten his hands messy with the retail brokerage business. Mother Merrill, of course, has 14,000 of the creatures. And trust The Business Press Maven, who used to be one, on this: Put your hand out to a retail broker and you are just as likely to pull it back a bloody stump.

Anyhow -- if you ignore all the deep analysis about golf and piece together this isolated critical question from that publication and that isolated good question from another, you can piece together a good piece of Thain -- one that portrays him as a man from a great firm, an accomplished man -- but no perfect flawless soul, bound by destiny to succeed while never touching a putter! Thain, good but imperfect, has a tough job ahead of him. Let the fun begin, but let it begin with you, the savvy investor, knowing where reality stands.