Frosty makes Fortune

In December I wrote some subprime-inspired carols about Goldman Sachs for the Home for the Holidays initiative of NTIC's Save the American Dream campaign. I had written the report posted on the left for that campaign, which was demanding that investment banks like Goldman give up bonuses for foreclosure prevention. A group of us from the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition and PUSH Buffalo (the two organizations that initiated the call for bonus paybacks) and a few other organizations braved the weather to sing those songs and others outside one of Goldman's holiday parties on the same day that they announced their record $20 billion in bonuses.

This week a profile of CEO Lloyd Blankfein in Fortune points to the event as a sign of the pressures Goldman faces:

Success has also subjected Goldman to intense scrutiny. "The business media focus on us like People focuses on movie stars, except they're better-looking and have more fun," says Blankfein, who is as good a wisecracker as he is a worrier. The fact that Goldman made bets against the housing market while selling mortgage-related securities inspired protesters to gather outside one of its holiday parties, singing "Goldman the Two-Faced I-Bank" (to the tune of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer") and "Frosty the Goldman ("Frosty the Goldman/Was a very crafty soul"). Blankfein, for his part, seems in equal parts proud of and - surprise - worried about Goldman's image. "We've gone from, maybe being pitied is a little too strong, to scary," he says.

I'm glad that the carols are interpreted as a sign of "intense scrutiny." We make off a lot better than Ben Stein, who is linked with conspiracy theories in the previous paragraph.

Incidentally, today at 3:30pm UNITE HERE is staging a protest of Goldman at its Broad Street headquarters. The union is drawing attention to ridiculous disparities in pay between Goldman bankers (660k/yr) and the Aramark workers in their cafeteria (21k/yr) and pressuring Goldman to let the union organize elsewhere without a fight. Gawker says this inequality is beside the point; Gawker has no soul.

Bethany McLean, the author of the Fortune piece, wrote Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. In the film version of her book, she says that her scrutiny of Enron wasn't par for the course at that time, and that her colleagues in the financial press were clamoring to write glossy profiles of CEOs. Unfortunately, this is one of those pieces. More on that later. For now, I'm going to post the lyrics to those songs, as well as some pictures and video from that protest (thanks to pressdecode):

Goldman, the two-faced i-bank
(to the tune of Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer)

You know Merrill and Morgan and Lehman and Citi
J.P. and Wamu and Bofa and Barclay's
But do you recall?
The most famous i-bank of all?

Goldman the two-faced i-bank
Gave out very shoddy loans
And if you ever saw them
You'd wonder how its profits rose

All of the other i-banks
Lost billions on the subprime game
How did that crooked Goldman
Come away with all the fame?

Because it knew how bad it was
And it stoked the flames
At the same time that it made bad loans
It bet that folks would lose their homes

Right now it's bonus season
And we're shouting "don't you see!
Goldman the two-faced i-bank
Pay now or pay in history!"

Frosty the Goldman

Frosty the Goldman
Was a very crafty soul
With a gilded pipe and a lot of dough
And a heart made out of coal

Frosty the Goldman
Was too smart to lose they say
He made awful loans
But he sure did know
How to swindle us for pay

There must have been some magic
In that goldman pipe he smoked
For when he held it to his lips
He made bank and we went broke

Frosty the Goldman
Was as rich as rich can be
But still he'd say
"Make the poor folks pay!
And bring their homes right back to me"

Frosty the Goldman
Knew there had to be a way
To boost his funds
At the end of the run
On the backs of the subprime prey

He plundered and pillaged
Like a felon on the lam
Running here and there all around De Beers
Saying catch me if you can

He led us down the road to debt
And before the market dropped
He even bet we'd lose our homes
And now we holler STOP!

(thief!)

Frosty the Goldman
It is soon your bonus day
Stop telling us lies
We can rhyme "securitize"
And you sure as hell can pay

thumpety thump thump
thumpety thump thump
Look at Goldman go

thumpety thump thump
thumpety thump thump
Give up your dirty dough