So you don’t want to comment on whether or not you’ve been breaking bread with Lloyd Blankfein since Spilker retired a few months ago?
I’d love to break bread with Lloyd. But he has to buy, because Goldman had a better 2009 than I did! But seriously, I did have a real issue back then and believed that the little episode was symbolic of a situation that would not have happened at Goldman Sachs perhaps 10 or 20 years ago. The concept that a Goldman MD would physically knock down property of a client was just sort of a stunning admission as to where their priorities were.
Do you think any of the hate for them has been warranted?
Let’s just put it this way: If I was managing their PR, I would’ve handled it a little differently. I think they probably could’ve done a better job in presenting an image to the public than they did. On the other hand, I feel for them, because I’m used to being scapegoated myself.
I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with your sex scandals, but one of Tiger Woods’ mistresses recently released their “sexts.” “No turkey unless it’s a club sandwich” was the best. Anyway, Eliot Spitzer. Thoughts on his legacy?
Eliot is a friend. He was an amazing attorney general. Obviously, he had a bit of a shortened term as governor, but he has a first-rate mind and understands financial fraud better than anyone. In these kinds of things, I think Eliot’s experience and his intellect are invaluable to seeing what happened in the crisis. We have far bigger issues in the country than worrying about people’s private lives.
If you had to pick one person who epitomizes all the excess of the past 10 years, who you can hold up for all the shit that’s gone down, who would it be?
I think it’s Jim Chanos, because as everyone knows, the shorts were behind all this.
Sell someone out! Be serious—come on, let’s nail someone to the wall.
[laughs] I’m sorry, I’m not going to sell anyone out. Last March, we did a debate on whether it was Wall Street or the government that was to blame, and my team lost, but I argued pretty vociferously it was Wall Street that was to blame. The issues here were so myriad that you can’t just pick one guy out and say, ‘He’s the villain.’
Do you have a least favorite hedge fund manager?
Do you think I’m crazy? I’m not answering that.
Speaking of (fake) hedge fund managers, Shia LaBeouf has been telling people in interviews that when he signed on to do Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, he opened an online brokerage account and turned $20,000 into $450,000 or $475,000 or $485,000, depending on the day. Do you buy that? Is he bullshitting us?
I have no idea, but I’d like to interview him if that’s true.
Bess Levin is editor of DealBreaker.com.
editorial@observer.com
