My problem with Shattuck is not personal, but I think he suffers from the same kind of arrogance that a lot of other executives do in this environment. Not only should he be humble, he should realize what business he is actually in.

First of all, this is my favorite part of the story:

"We built a very big [trading] business, as did a lot of other banks, and a lot of other banks aren't going to be standing at the end of this," he said. Listening to his critics, he said, "somehow there's a little bit of sense that you should never take any risks" if there's a possibility of loss.

Now, far-be-it for me to state the obvious, but he does not run a bank. AND YET he fell into the same trap as all of these other banking executives, that is, he thought that growing earnings +50% even amid a rate freeze a) equated to some kind of shareholder value creation (it didn't) and b) didn't put the company into a much riskier position than it was before he started (it did).

Now why would anyone want to run a public company if it wasn't a playground for a wealthy former investment banker to shake up all of the pieces, arranging and rearranging them until they equated to some kind of get-rich-quick scheme that he actually didn't even need. This to me is why I do not trust BGE and do not trust most executives, because they have gambler's eyes. Talking to them is like talking to a gambling addict while the wheel is spinning and the ball is rolling around, but the money's lying on the table. His interest is not in building a long-term, sustainable business, it's in creating a risky derivatives business suspect in a good environment and HIGHLY vulnerable in a abnormal environment.

Anyway, it's probably not his fault: he was probably compensated based on how much he grew earnings.

The solution is simply to have all utility, health care, food, and housing companies converted to non-profit status. Better yet, I favor socialism all around.