Mr. B. Back again this afternoon? Been eating those tacos again for lunch?
No, Selig. I’ve come to see you.
Me, sir?
Yes, you Selig. Ever done any media?
Well, I was included in New Kybo Monthly’s story a few years back about advances in sanitary hand drying. And…
No, Selig. Media. Real media. Television. Every been featured in a TV ad?
Not that I remember.
Well, how would you feel about doing one for Goldman Sachs?
You want me to do an ad showing off those hand drying techniques I talked about in New Kybo Monthly? Or maybe telling people how you let me invest my life savings in one of Goldman’s synthetic CDOs?
No, Selig. And please keep your voice down when you talk about that exciting investment opportunity. Look, here it is in a nutshell. We took a beating in those Senate hearings the other day. People we’ve been supporting with good advice and hard cash for years turned on us like, like…
Frightened weasels, sir?
Exactly. So now we need an image refurbishment. Something that lets people know that Goldman Sachs isn’t just a bunch of bonus crazed traders who can borrow cheap because we finagled ourselves into a commercial bank arrangement that also guarantees we get bailed out every time we overdo our financial innovations.
That’s not the Goldman Sachs I know down here in the company washroom, sir.
Of course it’s not, Selig. We’re people people who know there’s more to life than just making more money than everyone else on Wall Street. And we need a new Main Street-friendly image to show that in a new TV ad campaign. We need a person out front who doesn’t immediately bring to mind someone in a thousand-dollar suit who thinks he has a God-given right to huge compensation even when most everyone else is hurting badly because of a few perfectly forgivable and understandable but much misunderstood investment gambits.
An ordinary sort of person, sir? A different image for Goldman? Something that tells the world that Goldman is as much at home in a washroom as a stock and bond trading floor?
Exactly! So, Selig, what would you say to wearing a gleaming white tee shirt, sporting an earring, having a gold tooth inserted in your mouth to pick up studio lighting, and having your head shaved? Would you be willing to do that for Team Goldman?
Of course I would, Mr. B. I’d be honored to be Goldman’s Mr. Clean. I may be a little scrawny for the tee shirt, though.
Our 33rd floor gym can take care of that. Even been there? Done the tanning parlor?
We have a gym? A tanning parlor?
Never mind. A couple of days up there, you’ll look like Charles Atlas fresh from a few weeks in The Islands. The TV guys can also hid your scalp eczema.
You’ll supply the tee shirt, sir?
They’ll be a three-pack delivered tomorrow morning. And any you don’t use for the shoots you can keep for yourself. Because when someone deals with Goldman Sachs, Selig…
I know, sir. I know. They’re family.
For more financial satire from this author: http://www.wallstreetpoet.com