Morning Mr. B. What can I do you for today? Shoe shine? Trim? Towel after a sit down? Got some new Esquires in yesterday. The latest Economist is on the rack in stall 8.
No, Selig. Thanks, though. Just came in to brush my hair. Get away from it all for a few minutes.
Heavy is the head, sir. Heavy is the head.
You can say that again, Selig, Would you believe it? Those Congress witch hunters actually wanted me to come down to Washington again tomorrow to testify.
Not tomorrow, sir! I heard it was going to rain.
It is. So I won't be going. Even the Star Chamber crowd in D.C. doesn't expect me to show up when the weather is bad. Not yet anyway. No telling what comes next, though. Ever since their health care fandango fell apart they're looking for someone, anyone, they can persecute. Your own people fled Bolshevism, didn't they, Selig?
Yes, sir. Came here from England years ago. Got out just before they raised taxes to pay for their own lefty health care system.
Thank God you made it, Selig. Thank God. Ever hear from the ones you left behind?
Got a letter just the other day, sir. Mail still gets through somehow. My cousin. Terrible case, sir. Terrible. She's been waiting on a tushy tuck for eight months. Eight months! And that's the kind of thing they want to implement here.
Not yet. Selig. No yet. But I'm afraid there's other news that isn't so good. I heard something this morning you're not going to like. It's why I really came in.
I thought it was to read the new Economist. I put it in stall 8.
Maybe later, Selig. This news involves our bonuses.
Please tell me they aren't going to reduce those, sir. Please...
I'm afraid they are, Selig.
Don't they understand? Don't those crazies in Washington understand? When they swing wildly to punish people like you, Mr. B., they're actually hurting washroom attendants like me.
No, Selig, they don't understand. And they never will. You'll be alright though, won't you? Living on just a salary without a bonus? I've heard some Americans still manage to do that.
I can manage, sir. I have a bit put aside.
Good man. Perhaps I can even help protect that nest egg or yours. We have a special this week on double lock hamster warrants, or if you'd prefer something in the way of debt, I can fix you up with an underwater convertible that has it own multi-tiered reset features. Something else you might consider is an arbitrage play with the Romanian lei. You'd be betting the upside.
Arbitrage with the Romanian currency? On the up side, sir? Is it safe?
Can't miss. Full disclosure here, though. We're playing the down side with our own money. Does that bother you?
Why would it bother me?
Good man. Maybe I will take that shoe shine and trim now. And if you could get the new Economist out of the stall for me...
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Morning, Mr. B. Got your usual number 8 stall all ready. The CNN hookup in there was fuzzy for awhile but we got that fixed. We also have this new Japanese model down the row that I thought you might like to check out.
Thanks, Selig. Maybe I'll check it out later. I just came in now to think through some things in private.
More problems, sir? They never seem to stop coming these days.
Indeed, Seiig. Indeed. And it's all so misplaced. All based on misundestandings. Do you know what made this country great, Selig?
Investment banking?
Yes, of course. But it's not just who we are, its what we do. We take risks. You can't have innovation, you can't have economic growth, without risk-taking. That's what we do, Selig. We're risk takers.
You bear a heavy burden there, sir.
But now it's all threatened, Selig. And by a single man. Tall Paul.
Tall Paul, with the king-sized arms, sir? Tall Paul with the king-sized charms?
No, Selig. Not that Tall Paul. Tall Paul Volcker. All 6'7" of him.
Thought he was gone years go, sir. Heard you say 'good riddance' back then.
He was gone. But now he's back. And he's pushing to separate commercial banking corporations and investment banking, the way it was before 1999 when one of our people, Bobby Rubin, was running things at Treasury and got things changed.
Isn't Tim Geithner heading Treasury now, sir. Hasn't he's always been... been...
Very supportive. Yes he has, God bless him! Beat back attempts to surtax our bonuses. Beat back that transaction tax idea to raise money for the government. Did right by us in that A.I.G. fiasco, too. This Volcker though...
Tall Paul?
Him! He has the President's ear. Pushing that crazy populist stuff. Pushing to separate commercial banking from our own proprietary lending. If that goes through we won't be able to borrow from the Treasury at near zero interest rates. Worse, we won't have a guaranteed bail out next time, if God forbid, we face big losses from our own trading. Risk is risk, Selig. But what investment bank is going to take risks if we're the ones who have to bear losses we incur doing so instead of the government?
You shouldn't have to face that kind of hazard, sir. No moral person would want you to. About this new Japanese toilet...
You're right, Selig. Got to get my mind off Wall Street-bashing tall people. This their new high-tech model? Japanese seem to be way ahead of us here. What does it do that I don't know about?
Remember what you told was the secret of Goldman's success, sir?
You mean the company that controls the Treasury controls the universe.
Not that secret, sir. The one about the importance of a well scrubbed and tended bottom line....keep a clean bottom line and the world will beat pathway to your store....
Yes, I remember telling you that, too. Oh. You mean this new Japanese model...
NIKKEI traders swear by it, sir. Wouldn't show up for work if it wasn't available.
Perhaps I will give it a try, Selig. But for now, has the new GQ come in yet?
On the shelf, In your usual Number 8...
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The Adentures Of Selig Cartwright,
Goldman Sachs Washroom Attendant
(Episode 3—Will they never stop their hectoring?)
© Michael Silverstein
Mr. B. You're late this morning. And you're looking tired, sir.
Just got back from Europe, Selig. Things are going downhill very quickly over there. I'm not sure that even we'll be able to pull them back from the brink.
The way you did with our own economy, sir? It was a near thing here. Had you not been willing to become a commercial bank holding company, accepted those no interest loans from the Fed and that A.I.G. settlement, I don't know if America would even have...
Let's not think about that now, Selig. Sometimes an investment banker's just gotta do what an investment banker's gotta do. To save the little people, Washroom attendants, like yourself.
The misses includes you in her nightly prayers, sir.
Do send her my best regards. Now if only Europe...
Didn't I hear something about us and Greece?
You almost certainly did, Selig. Misreported, too, I'll wager. To think a company like Goldman Sachs would actualy stoop to helping a sovereign government fudge its books just so they could join the EU, and we could make a few hundred million in fees...
No one who knows the way Goldman operates coud possibly believe that, Mr. B.
But they do, Selig. Sometimes...
What, sir?
Sometimes I wish I could bag it all. Not have to play nice with smarmy reporters, with those hypocrites in Congress who take the scraps we throw them, then mouth off about our supposed shortcomings. Not be victimized by people jealous of our success. Not have to settle for a chump change bonus this year to appease the public. Do you know anybody these days who can get by with a yearly bonus of just a few million dollars?
Not anyone who uses this washroom, Mr. B. Of course if you included me...
Did you ever get around to fixing the 'Do Not Disturb' light up sign on the door of Stall Number 8, by the way?
All taken care of, sir. And I got in those classic old Aaron Spelling DVDs you requested as well. Right there on the shelf next to the player control panel.
The classics will always be classics, Selig.
Some things will never change, sir.
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The Adentures Of Selig Cartwright,
Goldman Sachs Washroom Attendant
(Episode 4—Keeping A Low Profile)
© Michael Silverstein
Morning Mr. B. Your personal stall is ready as always. Uh, don't mean to be intrusive, sir. But why are you wearing ripped jeans and a filthy tee short.
Our new office wear, Selig.
Dress down Thursday?
Dress down every day, Selig. And our wives are doing the dress down, too. New shop on Park Avenue sells street person look-a-like wear for $2,500 a pop. Bargain stuff. Hate to have the little lady forced to do this kind of thing, but it's the times we live in.
I understand perfectly, sir. The jealousy you people have been forced to endure for your well deserved success. Small minds spouting their envy. Pay 'em no mind, Mr. B.
I try. Lord knows, I try. But sometimes these shrill voices, harping on our contacts in government as if our people were put in place to advance our own interests instead of to improve the quality of national and international fiscal policies, well, it hurts, Selig.
You're too sensitive for your own good, Mr. B. If you don't mind me saying so. Down here in the washroom I'm privy, so to speak, to the way bodily systems of many of our people have been thrown askew by the constant slings and arrows.
Selig, if there were more washroom attendants making an honest living by providing personal services to Wall Street investment bankers, the world would be a better place. As a matter of fact...well, perhaps I shouldn't mention this...
Go ahead, sir, Your private stall won't get taken while we talk.
Well, some of the guys on the floor have been discussing perhaps an alternative to cutting back on spending more of what we've earned through honorable market-based toil. Doing it in a way, though, that doesn't attract unpleasant media attention. Perhaps all moving into our own community, isolated, well guarded, closed to prying eyes, where everything for which we've received bonuses can be spent copiously without any unfortunate P.R. blow back.
Sort of like the compounds of Columbia drug kingpins, sir.
I was thinking more along the lines of a super exclusive Hamptons without the mini-millionaire trash.
Wonderful idea, sir. Keep me in mind for a staff job there. For me, just serving you folks is the next best thing to actually being one of you. Ready now for a relaxing interlude in Stall 8?
Lead on, my good man. Lead on...
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The Adentures Of Selig Cartwright,
Goldman Sachs Washroom Attendant
(Episode 5—Fraud Angst)
© Michael Silverstein
Mr. B. You're early today. And forgive me for saying so, but you look terrible. Bad day in the markets? Europeans sniveling again about those Greek swaps? Bonuses complaints? More bad A.I.G press?
No, Selig. it's those fraud charges, that witch hunt. Your heard about them?
I did hear something about that, sir. On the portable radio you let your washroom attendants listen to during work hours.
No need to thank me, Selig. We like to treat our help with the same fairness and consideration we use with our clients.
And people bless you for it, sir. But this fraud thing surprised me. How could anyone think Goldman Sachs would stoop to fraud just to make a few million extra dollars?
Who indeed, Selig. Who indeed. Yet when socialism takes hold of a new administration in Washington, craziness like this inevitably follows.
But don't we have people at the Treasury who prevent these kinds of distractions? There's that nice Mr. Geithner person...
Yes, Timmy has been most understanding when it comes to our operations and the modest sums we make from our labors. He put the kibosh on a special tax hit on our well deserved compensation, killed that transaction tax nonsense, and just the other day knocked down some crazy Senator's idea to make us stop trading derivatives. Can you imagine. Selig? Keep a bank with access to the Treasury's cheap credit window from getting bailed out when its derivative trading goes bad?
If that isn't socialism, sir, I don't know what is. But Mr. Geithner didn't stop this fraud business. I don't understand.
It's a big government, Selig. And getting bigger all the time. Timmy and the Goldman alumni, along with the good old crowd from the New York Fed, pretty much run things at the Treasury. Do a damn good job, too. Unfortunately, they aren't in place to see that things run right in some other government departments
Maybe if we shrunk the size of government and cut back on its ability to regulate, things would work a lot better.
Oh Selig, Selig, Selig. Coming down to this washroom restores my faith in the American dream. By the way. The weather is getting really nice. We give you some vacation time, don't you?
A couple of weeks a year, sir. Though with the job market the way it is these days, I thought it prudent not to take any time off in the last two years.
Well do it anyway this year. And don't worry. As long as we have washrooms at Goldman Sachs, they'll always be a place in one of them for you. Where do you and the family summer, by the way, when you do take time off?
In Queens, sir. Where I winter, spring and fall.
In the same house?
Yes, sir.
You live all year in the same house? Extraordinary. Are there are others you've heard about, people who also manage this?
A fair number, sir.
Extraordinary. I can see how it would save on expenses moving staff from place to place. Still...Well enough of that now. Places to go. People to see, Deals to consummate. Clients to service the Goldman Sachs way. My usual stall ready?
Number 8 is ready for you as always. And I took care of the bugs in the video hook-up. I took the liberty of tuning it to 'Judge Judy' this morning. Show starts in a minute or two.
A good choice, Selig, What with one thing and another. An excellent choice...
To be continued...
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