Ahead of tomorrow’s hearing, there have been a flurry of stories about Goldman Sachs everywhere you look, including this here site. But it was only Kate Kelly’s Wall Street Journal article that really hit home. For whatever you think about Goldman Sachs and its employees, they’re just people. Just men. Just financial services hacks who, when they’re not coming up with nefarious plots to take over the universe (JK…JK I’m serious), are shoveling food in their mouths as quickly as possible for sport.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s mortgage traders, under the spotlight because of the U.S. government’s fraud lawsuit against the securities firm, made markets in more than just bonds during the real-estate bubble. They also cast bets on a White Castle hamburger-eating contest. In December 2007, after the firm distributed multimillion-dollar bonus checks in part thanks to bets on a mortgage meltdown, about 10 Goldman mortgage traders, surrounded by dozens of cheering colleagues, wolfed down the burgers, according to attendees. Bystanders wagered cash on how many burgers the traders could eat.
If you care about Lloyd and Co at all, and maybe you don’t, tomorrow you’ll step up to the plate and do one of these (but after the hearing so I can provide coverage, otherwise there’s no point). And if not for Lloyd, do it for Pookie.
This wolfing down the big macs/super-size-me imagery is all well and nice, but it fools no one and only leads us to believe the hand of Von Lucas is at bay. We all know we’re talking 10 mini-burgers here and worse, the truth is speeled out later in the article:
“Despite the annual White Castle frenzy, in which the proceeds were given to charity, many of the traders were health nuts. Many noshed on egg whites, fruit, and turkey sandwiches, ordered up by the group’s assistants or taken from the pantry down the hall.”
Noshing on egg whites? How urbane!
At least they did it for charity.
Reading Kate Kelly is painful. Kate is the WSJ’s version of Bess, but she’s (a) much less entertaining and (b) trying to pretend that she’s reporting real news.
Never thought I’d see Brady’s pic in a WSJ article on GS. That whole article was so random and disjointed.
I WANT TO KNOW WHY ANDREW COUMO HAS BEEN QUIET ABOUT THIS GOLDMAN SACHS CASE?
LESSON TO WALL STREET: IT PAYS TO BE A CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTOR.IT WOULD SILENCE WALL STREET “COPS”.
Bess, the real action is in getting the back-office guys in on the competition. Put up a few hundred bucks for the winner of course…but the bets placed by traders on the competitors themselves can reach an aggregate notional value into the tens of thousands.
Hey!…the desk ordered Philly cheese-steaks for lunch today….and look, if anyone wants extra cheese they gave us a 1 gallon can of Cheese-Wiz.
This afternoon a champion will be made!
Each food has it’s own challenges. McNuggets for instance are way more filling than you think they are. Target low on those babies. McNugget sauce….now that’s what separates the men from the boys!
The following isn’t technically a competitive eating story but it bears mentioning:
Junior kid bets trader on outcome of Yankee/Red Sox game that night. Junior kid stands to win $1000 if his team wins, if not he has to work the entire next day from the handicapped stall in the Men’s Room with a laptop and his cell phone.
Kid comes in the next morning a little down…..lost the game last night. He gathers his things and heads off to the Men’s Room.
Victorious trader then stands up and announces he’s buying Indian for the entire floor for lunch.
Ouch.
write offs?
probably the best scene of the entire movie.
there have been a flurry of stories about Goldman Sachs everywhere you look,
Really? Is something going on with Goldie?
—Guy who is still fixated on the pending arrival of the Druries
Is Bess Levin any connected to Carl Levin?
pookie is new jack city ho, not some cracker asses
I HATE BESS LEVIN’S UNCLE FROM MICHIGAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“At times, the net short position accumulated by Goldman Sachs was as large as $13.9 billion. The short positions held by the firm’s mortgage department became so large that according to the Goldman Sachs risk measurements, the positions comprised 53 percent of the
firm’s overall risk, according to Goldman Sachs own Value-at-Risk (VaR) measures.”
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/2010April26_MemorandumonWallStreetCrisis.PDF
I’ll be chowing down WEN(dy’s) bacon bleus (don’t tell my rabbi) and swilling a HANS(ens) Monster. Hopefully I don’t choke laughing if some US Senator grows himself half a testicle and asks Fabs if his Goldie Lox babe was worth losing his job over.
Sure would be nice to see Barney Frank and crew get a crack at Blankfein next. First question would be why Laura doesn’t think her gay hair stylist is good enough to be invited to one of their parties even though he was willing to schlep all the way out to the Hamptons on a bad hair Saturday not that long ago.
Really Really looking forward to Bess post on the Goldman hearings today – Did a few prayers this am that Zach will take a day off and we don’t have to read his boring post.
As Jimmy Paige once wrote – or was it Robert Plant? – “It makes me wonder”. I wonder what defect it is in the psychological makeup of a group of human beings that would have them putting the health and well being of millions of other human beings behind the private profit of a very few. Most of these lawmakers who live in the pockets of the Plutocracy call themselves “Christians”. Have they ever made a serious study of the books? You know! – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? – Those guys! How do they justify their actions? How do they sleep at night? We’re talkin’ major hypocrisy here! That’s what makes them so much fun to watch! I always get a certain twisted delight in watching their fake piety. Imagine Wendy O. Williams being cast as Bernadette of Lourdes; or Marilyn Manson as Mahatma Gandhi. It’s kind of the same thing.
Sooner or later our right wing friends, within the Congress and without, are going to be forced to admit that the era of anything goes deregulation was a really stupid idea. You can only sit calmly in a burning house, ignoring the flames all about you, for just so long. Sooner or later you’ll be forced to flee for your life. After making your escape, if you still refuse to acknowledge that the house is indeed on fire, you’re beyond the point where you can make rational decisions on your own. You’ve entered Librium Country, hombre!
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Tom Degan