The Journal ran an interview with Holman Jenkins and Lloyd Blankfein over the weekend on a variety of topics including whether or not the bank will pay out huge bonuses this year despite populist bitching (yes), if Goldman got any special treatment during the crisis (no) and whether or not GS was at risk to fail. According to Blankfein, on the one hand, yes. HELL FUCK YES. Goldman was in the same posish as everyone else and everyone else was going down and going down hard. Save for the night he accidentally walked into then-Goldman chief Hank Paulson’s office and saw things he’ll never be able to un-see, involving thrusting and the mask from Scream, it was the absolute scariest time in LB’s life. You have no idea. Why do think he nearly started crying during a phone call with Tim Geithner? Because he thought it was all over.
Had the financial system collapsed, Mr. Blankfein unhesitatingly acknowledges, “We would have been in that snowball tumbling down the hill with everybody else. It would be ludicrous to say otherwise. As a member of the system, we were all at risk. I will tell you I was more scared than you, because I was closer to it and I knew more. If you had known as much I did, you would have been as scared as I was.”
Sounds like some pretty harrowing shit, right? Yeah, if you were working for some dump like AIG it probably was! Luckily Blankfein was working for a bank where the biggest thing they have to worry about is setting off the metal detectors with their gold plated scrots. That thing I just said two seconds ago about GS being in the same position as everyone else? Just messing with you, for sport. Being the “overachievers” we are at Goldman Sachs sometimes we do that, after we’re done making it rain.
But he also insists that Goldman was not especially at risk. On the contrary, it came through the crisis without suffering nearly the losses of its Wall Street confrères. “People say, ‘Oh, you would have failed, blah, blah.’ Well, I didn’t think so. Our liquidity was huge. I knew what our liquidity and cash was. It felt OK, but let me tell you, there was getting to be ‘run’ elements to it.”
Here Are Some Thoughts On Men And Wall Street
Jerk Running Ferry To Fire Island Not Up On The Celebs Of Financial Reform
“Our liquidity was huge”
is he donald trump now?
fuck you.
-dick fuld
He is so likeable – just like KL.
“member of the system” is the new killing it
I guess he’s out today, so I’ll say it: he looks so regal in that pic.
In another extraordinary measure, the FDIC enabled Goldman and other financial institutions to bulk up their cash by issuing FDIC-guaranteed debt. Says Mr. Blankfein: “Being Goldman Sachs and overachievers that we were, we were the first ones to do it. I didn’t know it would be a pejorative. At the time I thought it was a good thing. In retrospect, I’m glad we stopped at 22 [billion]. I wish we’d stopped at zero.”
“being the overachievers we are”
what.a.dick.
“the cherubic and youthful Mr. Blankfein”
@7
methinks holman has a crush
@8 b/c those are his initials or because you think lloyd looks like a dyke?
They’re a commercial bank now, right? Where can I find the Goldman Sachs GoldScrotum MasterCard application?
I am kind of perplexed by the pic. I always assumed that Lloyd’s package is so massive that crossing legs while sitting down just wasn’t possible.
Its at least refreshing to see him use that technique rather than the girly full crossover.
It is so hard to not wish him and his firm well – isn’t it?
I snowball people all the time.
-vik pandit
@Cluzo, the image of the Pope placing the crown upon his head has been mysteriously cropped out of the top of this pic
@15, get your facts straight. He crowned himself.
What the fuck is a “scrots”? Is it like a sporran?
Is that why I didn’t get the job?
@12
What you can’t see is that GoldScrot’s inseam is extra roomy, giving him room to route the goods down one pants leg or the other.
@17 more than one person works at GS, therefor there is more than one more pair of scrot. you didn’t get the job because you are an idiot.
It pains me no end that Mark Klein, MD is no longer posting in here.
It pains me no end that Mark Klein, MD is no longer posting in here.
Golden Sacs
Naked,
I have a pound of duct tape and a catheter that says you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
- Bloyd Lleinkfein
the man came up from the projects and has become the biggest bsd out there.
@24 everyone here knows that, thanks champ.
Michael Moore said capitalism is evil but GS seems to be even more so.
after years of reading/skimming the WSJ, have finally come to this conclusion: there’s simply NO corporate exec holman jenkins won’t blow; nor ANY stupid/crooked/evil corporate act that jenkins won’t applaud. my faves are all his columns defending the backdating of exec stock options, which is of course a perfectly reasonable & legal thing to do: executive “talent” *must* be hugely rewarded, even if the stock goes down on their watch.
which, now i think of it, is why LB probably insisted on jenkins for the interview. “work it in that i’m still youthful and vigorous, jenkins. got that?” “yessir”.
Ironic that a dude from the J Aron acquisition is running the place. So much for white shoe M&A bankers.
Do they still roll dice in the hallways?