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Thursday, April 22, 2010

American Idiot of the day - Lloyd Blankfein - CEO Goldman Sachs

One interesting feature of the financial meltdown has been the singular lack of contrition among the key players save Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citibank who wasn't even at the helm most of the time. Maybe it's his Indian upbringing.

Blankfein of Citibank however, recently went so far as to claim he was doing 'God's work' by making credit available for businesses. He had to walk that statement back after a minor shitstorm erupted by claiming it was said in jest. I suspect not and the only God he and his scheming cohorts could possibly be working for is the God of shortselling.

Since the SEC filed a lawsuit against Goldman Sachs he has been under the gun. One would expect him to be extremely circumspect considering the flak he's getting but instead he came out with guns firing. In a call to major clients yesterday, even the staid Financial Times thought his response to be completely over the top. Blankfein's tone seemed hysterical, defensive, narcissistic and paranoid.

For me the killer came when he claimed the suit was politically motivated and would 'hurt America.' It might hurt the America where compensation is measured in a string of zeroes but not in the America where people have seen the value of their houses, their pension and their 401K's shrivel up and their job security threatened.

Is this arrogant asshole even aware that a good part of the $1 billion lost in his company's little Abacus investment scheme was pension money for teachers, police, firemen and others? People who actually do something useful and who are now being laid off by the thousands or are having their work hours cut.

And this delusional cretin who is too chickenshit to admit he maybe fucked up, thinks he's done 'God's work' and that his company finally nailed for fraud is a bad thing for America.

Idiot is about the kindest word I can use to describe him. If this was a just world the America he should be experiencing is life in a maximum security prison.

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