10 March 2012

The Grade a Banker Project

So New York City public school teachers have had their "value-added ratings" released to the media.  Despite some concerns that value-added ratings may be inaccurate, it's clear to any right-minded deformer that value-added ratings and public shaming are the way to go.  Besides, the DFER types probably had lousy public school teachers who didn't teach them about data, graphs, analysis, and statistics, so this is just desserts: So what if these ratings aren't very accurate?  We can't do the math anyway!


Anyway, I think that all of us public school teachers should get behind value-added ratings.  This doesn't mean I plan to pass out the #2 pencils to the Kindergartners on Monday, though!

What I think we need is to bring this method of rating job performance - including public data release - to the world at large.  Given their focus on free-market efficiency, meritocracy, and all that noise, I propose we start with our great houses of financial capital.

Like New York's data, we can start institutionally and then drill down to individuals.  We'll rate the success of corporations - return on capital, impact of investments on the broader economy, need for federal intervention, etc. - and then move on to individual bankers.  Just what did Lloyd Blankfein do to build greater wealth in the United States last year?  Hedge funds, private capital managers, and big banks will provide a strong start for our objective approach.

Good banks and bankers can look forward to having their picture in the company newsletter and perhaps discounted tickets to a baseball game.  Bad banks and bankers can be publicly shamed and fired, just like we do with teachers!

It might also be of use to see what the data proponents use to grade their own progress.  I mean, John Arnold's standards for a good performance evaluation are pretty different than mine - and I don't think his are really in line with what we want our children to learn.

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