Seven Red

Although I suppose it doesn’t do much good, I do like how Goldman Sachs is beginning to take on the cultural value of an uber-villain. The galling bonuses, even after their practices essentially sunk the whole economy, are bad enough, and set the teeth of most people on edge. That Goldman alums have had their claws in just about everything at Treasury for the past 15 years is even more infuriating in the face of their massive fail. But the pure nerve of Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s statement that Goldman is “doing God’s work” is simply too much for most folks, I should think, as unemployment hits 10 plus percent, while GS has a monster year. Certainly, “85 Broad Street” doesn’t have the same ring to it as “Versailles,” or “the Bastille” (85 Broad Street Day?), but you can see the Goldman monolith taking on the same cultural value as the symbol of extravagance and decadence and oppression. God’s work! It’s almost as if he tried to find the most inappropriate thing to say, and then said it. The PR folks must have been face-palming well into the night on that one. In any case, here’s Calvin Trillin, writing in the Nation – and it’s just one of many parodic responses the Blankfein’s nonsense (a Lloyd’s Prayer circulated around Wall Street as well):

On every seventh day the Lord can rest.
He knows that Goldman Sachs will do its best
To work away at that for which He’d hanker:
A pot of dough for each investment banker.

As He looks down at us from high above,
The Lord’s not interested in peace and love
And such as that. The Lord has got this itch
To see the Goldman Sachs folks filthy rich.

He wishes they had more than what they’ve got–
Another house or two, another yacht.
His hopes for these to whom he gave the nod:
More money, as the saying goes, than God.

One of the great cultural victories of neoliberalism was to convince people that there was something virtuous and even socially valuable in the kind of high stakes finance capital operations run by Goldman and similar entities. It’s not surprising that these people would squander away their cultural capital with the same recklessness that they squandered away their economic capital. The more Goldman starts to appear culturally like the old octopus cartoons of the oil and railroad trusts, the more pressure will presumably be put on the government to reverse 30 years of free-for-all dereg. Though, to be fair, any pressure on Goldman still seems years away. The problem, of course, is not GS itself, and perhaps we shouldn’t deal in such symbolic villainy, but it’s a pretty good place to start, and besides, they seem all too willing to do it to themselves. Hubris ain’t attractive.

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