Compared to the brief response Goldman Sachs had to the scathing resignation letter by Greg Smith in the New York Times Wednesday, the Internet has been positively ablaze with chatter, much of it humorous.
Smith’s letter, in which he describes Goldman brokers called their clients "muppets," has spawned a plethora of satire on the Internet lampooning either his Op-Ed or Goldman Sachs or both. British satire website The Daily Mash ran a letter from Star Wars villain Darth Vader spelling out why he was leaving the Empire.
“To put the problem in the simplest terms, throttling people with your mind continues to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making people dead,” Vader said in the Daily Mash post.
A writer from Minyanville, in “Why I am applying for an Executive Director Position at Goldman Sachs,” says in a fictional letter to Blankfein: “For example, let's say I was to unhappily quit the firm after, I don't know, 12 years. Having likely made millions and millions of dollars working for Goldman, I would never turn around and blast the firm's bad behavior after filling my bank account with the fruits of that bad behavior.”
The letter theme seems to be particularly attractive. Comedian Andy Borowitz whipped up a fictional response from Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein: “In the letter, in which he excoriates Goldman and his practices, Mr. Smith comes across as a man of conscience, ideals, and high moral standards. And as you read his words, you no doubt asked yourself this troubling question: how could Goldman have hired such a person?”
Perhaps Blankfein is asking himself that very question.
