Ghetto Finance Mon 11/09/09 #4: Blankfein’s/Wall Street’s big lie

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6907681.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2

“I’ve got news for you,” he shoots back, eyes narrowing. “If the financial system goes down, our business is going down and, trust me, yours and everyone else’s is going down, too.”

Me:

Is the narrowing of the eyes for emphasis or because he’s lying?
The latter I suspect.

My life is no different because Lehman Brothers is gone.  In fact, it might be a little bit better as it put a mark in the column for when the universe was just and right.  I had no business with them, I had no account with them, etc.

What else do you expect a middleman to say?  People still would have eaten, government insurance on cash accounts and brokerage accounts would have kicked in, etc.  I’m not going to say it wouldn’t have sucked for a bit, but we’ve been through worse as a country.

I believe Blankfein/Wall Street is unable to see anyone but themselves.  So when HE thinks about Goldman going belly up, he sees his stock holdings swirling down the toilet, and he sees himself getting the paper in the morning in his sweatpants, but he does not and can not see tens and hundreds of millions of us who could give a shit if they all went down yesterday, today, or tomorrow.

Tell me, O great Blankfein, what would it look like?