Skanky as they may be! Having a lucid moment for perhaps the first time ever, Bank of America has decided that is it in no position to take a moral stand against (alleged) cheating or shitty driving.
charity
Alright people. This is it. If the sight of Goldman Sachs employees voluntarily handling garbage doesn’t stop the hate, they’re going to have to go to DEFCON 1: blow job booth, manned by Blankfein.
The Salvation Army plans to serve 10,000 free dinners across the city this Thanksgiving — meals planned by a star chef, cooked by one of New York’s ritziest caterers and cleaned up by employees of one of Wall Street’s most vilified financial firms. The number of meals is 10 times as many as last year and come at a time when more and more Americans are struggling to put food on the table.
Three hundred employees of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Wall Street’s richest firm, have volunteered for the holiday feast and will be tasked with taking out the garbage.
But not to ourselves! Comp is down, sort of!
Non-profit organization Junior Achievement of New York, which places volunteers in NYC and Long Island class rooms to “teach students about their role in society and how to successfully navigate their futures,” held its annual Stock Market Challenge last night. The fundraiser, sponsored this year by Merrill Lynch, simulates 60 days of trading, with teams (from banks and other businesses) being issued $500,000 in mock dollars that they use to purchase fake stocks before the “opening bell.” They then buy and sell through a “floor trader,” several of which roam the room taking orders. All proceeds go to funding JANY’s programs. Unfortunately, we weren’t invited. Luckily, one participant took copious notes. Normally we’d make you wait for the results (as you would expect, ranking from first to last place is determined by how much “money” each team has at the end), but they’re too hilarious—and telling—not to put out there up front. (You’ll note that Citi did not place in the Top Ten, which had less to with lacking skills and more to with neither participating nor donating to the event, because it was awake at the office doing work.)
1. Best Buy (1)
2. WaMu
3. Merrill
4. Deloitte
5. Keyspan (1)
6. Goldman (2)
7. KPMG
8. Best Buy (2)
9. Keyspan (2)
10. (I forget, but not a big-dog)
11. Pitney Bowes
…….
19. Goldman (2)
Well, I just had a lovely conversation with UBS’s head of investment bank corporate communications. She was calling to ream me out about our Rock Band story from yesterday, because apparently it has to do with charity—the tryouts were for a competition being held during a May 6th dinner, at which UBS is being named the recipient of the “Heart of Gold Award” by the Volunteer Center of Southwestern Fairfield County—and we made light of the auditions, held in the UBS cafeteria. She mentioned several times that our insinuation that the whole thing was really a prescreening for upcoming layoffs “wasn’t amusing at all.” In my defense, none of the tipsters who told us about the auditions mentioned anything about charity, which we rarely, if ever, poke fun at. I should have done my due diligence, but the notion, while silly, that UBS would be putting together a Rock Band team to compete against other local businesses, not unlike a corporate softball team, didn’t seem that far fetched. Nor did the conspiracy theory that senior execs had taken our December suggestion that firms ought to play one big game of Assassin to determine who gets laid off seriously, decided to run with it, and put their own musical spin on things.
Also in my defense? That post was moderately funny. I’m comfortable saying that. If it wasn’t “amusing” enough for you, well, then I guess you’re a more critical arbiter of comedy than me. The bottom line is that the purpose of this site is to offer funny stuff about finance. If yesterday’s piece wasn’t good enough for you, Chuckles, tell you what—you write something “amusing” about UBS, and I’d be more than happy to put it up. Either that, or eat 250 oysters. Until then, get out of my face.
Related: UBS’s Fetish For Using Dulcet Tones As A Salve To Ease Sack-Rippingly Bad News
*But, seriously, it’s nice that you do charity.
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Blackstone Group
Steve Schwarzman Tells Hard-Studying Bronx Kids That Good Grades Are Over-Rated
By John Carney
“How do you get from here to the rest of the world?”
The question is one of the most heart-breaking moments on this season of the Wire. It’s asked of Cutty, an ex-con turned proprietor of a neighborhood boxing gym. The youngster asking it is Dukie, of the desperate kids caught up in the mess of youthful drug dealing but who is told by friend and foe alike that his talents lie elsewhere. “I wish I knew,” is Cutty’s humble answer.
One guy who might know is Steve Schwarzman, the billionaire head of private equity giant Blackstone. And last week he went to the Sacred Heart School in the Bronx to deliver his answer. Unlike conventional advice—that it was important to work hard at school and stay out of trouble—Schwarzman seemed to propose that doing well in school isn’t all it is cracked up to be.
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