For an organisation that will often find itself in conflict with business, this is not an encouraging sign.Goldman SachsCushioned by booming fixed-interest markets, none of the bulge bracket investment banks of Wall Street and the City are doing quite as badly as conditions in equity markets might suggest. John Thornton, co-chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, can therefore genuinely claim to be leaving for his new job as a professor of business at Tsinghua University, China, with the bank still in robust health, even if the share price is not. Even his own area of speciality, corporate finance, is turning in a respectable performance given the collapse in activity. Having capitalised so spectacularly out of the deal-making frenzy of the boom, Goldman Sachs is capitalising all over again on refinancing and restructuring the overstretched balance sheets it helped to create. What a business.All the same, Mr Thornton’s going is something of a defining moment for Goldman Sachs, as well as recognition by him that his chances of fast footing it to the top job as chief executive look remote as long as the present incumbent, Hank Paulson, shows so little sign of wanting to give it up.

Mr Thornton was plainly getting fed up as a deputy, and even if Mr Paulson fouls up, Mr Thornton is by no means assured of the succession with fixed interest so much in the ascendancy. Mr Thornton was once thought keen to marry Goldman Sachs off in another giant banking consolidation, but plainly this is not the time for banking mega deals, with the disaster of JP Morgan Chase standing as a terrible warning to all.The real explanation for Mr Thornton’s departure is none the less the obvious one ­ he’s done investment banking, he’s been hugely successful at it, counting some of the world’s greatest business leaders among his confidantes and clients, and he’s already made more money than anyone could sensibly spend in a lifetime. Most important of all, this just seems like a good time for a career change. Goldman Sachs will no doubt continue to thrive, but we won’t see another investment banking boom quite like the last one for a generation or more. Why hang around for the hard slog of less exciting times? So he’s off to the next “big thing” ­ China.Whether teaching the Chinese the secrets of American capitalism is an entirely healthy thing for America itself is an interesting question. Economically and commercially, the Chinese want to eat America’s lunch, and although there is little doubt that this will be as much the American century as the last one, China may be chasing hard by the end of it.

As ever, Mr Thornton has taken pains over the years to develop his Chinese connections, and now he’s getting in at the ground floor of China’s development story, in the same way as he was in the vanguard of Americanisation of the City here in Britain from the mid-1980s onwards. Mr Thornton has long harboured political ambitions, and he’s in with a decent shot at a top Treasury position come the next Democrat administration That time may not be as far off as it once seemed. In the meantime, China looks the place to be.Cable & WirelessThere was understandable relief in the stock market yesterday that Cable & Wireless has finally cleared up all unsettled tax disputes with the Inland Revenue with the payment of a cheque for £380m. On second glance, however, this is not such good news as it seems. True enough, C&W can now release the £1.5bn it was holding in escrow against past tax liabilities, but since the company has always insisted that the money would never have to be paid, it’s a bit of a shock to discover that actually £380m of it does.All the same, Richard Lapthorne, brought in to sort out the mess C&W has become, can reasonably claim that this is one further piece of uncertainty removed. Still to come is finding a new chief executive and a new strategy.