A Letter from Goldman Sachs

[RandomGuy]

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)– The following is a letter released today by Lloyd Blankfein, the chairman of banking giant Goldman Sachs:

Dear Investor:

Up until now, Goldman Sachs has been silent on the subject of the protest movement known as Occupy Wall Street. That does not mean, however, that it has not been very much on our minds. As thousands have gathered in Lower Manhattan, passionately expressing their deep discontent with the status quo, we have taken note of these protests. And we have asked ourselves this question:

How can we make money off them?

The answer is the newly launched Goldman Sachs Global Rage Fund, whose investment objective is to monetize the Occupy Wall Street protests as they spread around the world. At Goldman, we recognize that the capitalist system as we know it is circling the drain – but there’s plenty of money to be made on the way down.

The Rage Fund will seek out opportunities to invest in products that are poised to benefit from the spreading protests, from police batons and barricades to stun guns and forehead bandages. Furthermore, as clashes between police and protesters turn ever more violent, we are making significant bets on companies that manufacture replacements for broken windows and overturned cars, as well as the raw materials necessary for the construction and incineration of effigies.

It would be tempting, at a time like this, to say “Let them eat cake.” But at Goldman, we are actively seeking to corner the market in cake futures. We project that through our aggressive market manipulation, the price of a piece of cake will quadruple by the end of 2011.

Please contact your Goldman representative for a full prospectus. As the world descends into a Darwinian free-for-all, the Goldman Sachs Rage Fund is a great way to tell the protesters, “Occupy this.” We haven’t felt so good about something we’ve sold since our souls.

Sincerely,

Lloyd Blankfein

Chairman, Goldman Sachs

-------------------------------------

http://www.borowitzreport.com/2011/1...goldman-sachs/

Wow.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

He must want the protests continue because the movement has lulled a bit in the past week. He just breathed new life. its like the Israelis and dealing with Hamas. Its a bizarre world we live in.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

You don't actually think that's serious do you?

[vy65]

lol thinking an onion-esque article was real

[RandomGuy]

He must want the protests continue because the movement has lulled a bit in the past week. He just breathed new life. its like the Israelis and dealing with Hamas. Its a bizarre world we live in.

Sorry fuzzy, it is just good satire.

Gotcha.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

yeah i cannot find corroboration anywhere. Not cool RG.

as an aside i did find this:

To: Barack Obama From: Humboldt Pye, Chairman of First Reform Bank

Dear Mr. President:

I’m writing an open letter to you and other G20 leaders on behalf of the chairmen of the world’s leading banks to say sorry.

We do not think banks are to blame for every ill the world currently faces, as the Occupy Wall Street protests and their kin in other countries suggest. A balanced audit would attribute responsibility to policymakers too: you and your predecessors set the rules of the game that we so craftily exploited. Even the public had a hand in the current mess: excess spending in some countries and inadequate taxpaying in others allowed people to consume too much.

But we are not in a position to lecture the rest of society. During the bubble years, we focused first on our own pay packages and then on profits for our shareholders. Insofar as we thought about the wider interest, we comforted ourselves with the belief that financial markets were efficient and free markets were the best way of generating wealth. So, as we pursued our self-interest, the world must by definition get better.

There were many flaws in this intellectual edifice. But contrary to popular belief, the weakness was not so much the failure of the market as the failure to apply the market. Central banks, especially the U.S. Federal Reserve, were always cutting interest rates at the first sign of trouble. The belief that Nanny was always there to rescue the markets lulled us into taking excessive risks. Second, the notion that governments would always bail out banks meant our bondholders didn’t bother to rein us in. Finally, our compensation practices amounted to “heads I win, tails you lose” bets. If our gambles paid off, we went laughing all the way to the bank. If they didn’t, the tab was ultimately left with taxpayers.

Our apology, though, can’t stop here. How we behaved after the bubble burst was arguably even worse. If it wasn’t for the extraordinary government and central bank assistance we’ve received (and still enjoy), most of us would have gone bankrupt. Despite this, we have kept paying our staff mega packages.

Our greed has enraged the people. Countries have imposed special taxes on the industry and pretty much everywhere the regulatory noose has tightened. We are not so naive to think we can swim against this tide, but we have sought to delay and dilute the most significant changes to capital and liquidity rules, which really hit our bottom line.

We have tried especially hard to wriggle out of anything that smacks of nationalization. Those of us who haven’t avoided this fate have had tough controls imposed on bonuses and dividends. The rest of us have therefore preferred to do anything to escape the state’s embrace, such shrinking our balance sheets rapidly, which allows us to boost capital “ratios” without issuing extra equity. Given the binge of the bubble years, deleveraging is appropriate. But rushing the process is probably tightening credit conditions and worsening the economic difficulties.

During this whole process, we’ve communicated terribly. Not that even a great orator like you, Mr. President, would have found this easy. The public assumes that everything we say is self-serving. But a leadership vacuum compounded this problem. Most of us were too cowardly to speak up. The few who did got pilloried – like Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein when he made a bad taste joke about how he was doing “God’s work”.

That pretty much left JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon to fill the void. For a while, he did a valiant job of speaking up for the industry in a down-to-earth manner. But too many flattering profiles about how he was a latter-day John Pierpoint Morgan saving the financial system may have gone to his head. His verbal assault on the Bank of Canada governor, Mark Carney, at the International Monetary Fund meeting in September shocked even other bankers.

We would now like to press the reset button in our relationship with society. At the heart of this will be the regulatory regime you are developing – in particular, measures to make sure that no bank in the future is too big to fail. Our pledge is that we will cooperate as you ins ute these changes, rather than fight them every step of the way.

We will also try harder to explain what we do. If we can’t show how what we do helps society, we should stop doing it.

We do not, of course, expect the public to believe our protestations of better behavior. So our senior executives are foregoing bonuses for at least two years. We are also going to squeeze cash compensation for other staff. We hope the public will in time appreciate that this leopard can change its spots.

Yours sincerely,

Humboldt Pye

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...00461920111024

First sniff of anything approximating contrition from those s.

[Winehole23]

Not cool RG.

Try following the link next time.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

i dont even think thats real. bah. Satire is the closest we get to any action is pretty sad.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Hey guys thats the way i am. i will take you at face value until you demonstrate i shouldn't. Thats why i am so unbelievable venomous towards Darrin. if it makes you feel good to 'get me' from time to time thats fine but i try and be rational in my approach.

[Wild Cobra]

LOL...

think maybe they are purposely adding fuel to the fire?

[DarrinS]

FuzzyLump s cannot detect sarcasm or satire if it comports with his world view.

[boutons_deux]

GOP Rep. Joe Walsh Melts Down, Screams At Cons uents: ‘Dont Blame Banks!…I Am Tired Of Hearing That Crap!’

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...wn-bank-lobby/

[DMX7]

After reading the Citi Oligarchy Memo, I'm sure Fuzzy can be forgiven.

[baseline bum]

GOP Rep. Joe Walsh Melts Down, Screams At Cons uents: ‘Dont Blame Banks!…I Am Tired Of Hearing That Crap!’

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...wn-bank-lobby/

LOL, when your point is stupid just yell it.

[RandomGuy]

yeah i cannot find corroboration anywhere. Not cool RG.

Sorry man, if you click on the link, it is pretty obvious that the site is an Onion clone. The bit about the Greeks paying off their debts to Brussels with a giant wooden horse was funny too.

as an aside i did find this:



http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...00461920111024

First sniff of anything approximating contrition from those s.

If you thumb through the menus under "opinion", the columnist Hugo Dixon is listed there, so it is also likely a clever satire of sorts.

The given "author"s name, i.e. "Humbolt Pye", immediately jumps out as a allusion to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humble_pie

I kind of agree with the piece though. Well written.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

FuzzyLump s cannot detect sarcasm or satire if it comports with his world view.

I admitted to getting sucked. I was a bit slow on the uptake, oh well. At least I didn't try to change the subject and lie about where I got my link from like you do.

[boutons_deux]

His debbil tummy made him do it.


Rep. Joe Walsh Explains His ‘Don’t Blame Banks’ Rant: I ‘Was Working On An Empty Stomach’



I was working on an empty stomach and had a quicker fuse than normal.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/20...t-blame-banks/