Goldman Sachs employees blocked from Facebook, Dealbreaker

Jonathan Berr — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:57:00 EST

Filed under: Management, Goldman Sachs Group (GS)

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) is cracking down on how its employees can waste their time while they are at work.

According to Dealbreaker, the top investment bank has blocked Facebook and prohibits workers from posting comments on the snarky Web site. The incident is so noteworthy that the gossip blog has a flashing siren graphic above its post on the topic.

"I'm sure the lot of you are going to argue that the vast majority of financial firms have long blocked access to the social networking site, but Goldman's supposed to be above such pedestrian measures," the blog says, adding that Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein used to not care about such things as "as long as you're kicking ass (by lying about level three assets)."

Fair enough but times are tough on Wall Street. Investment bankers are scrambling to hold onto their jobs as the credit crunch shows no signs of easing. Nannies who used to care for the children of Wall Streeters are finding themselves unemployed. I am sure the strippers at New York's "gentlemen's clubs" are hurting too.

Even Goldman, the best run of any Wall Street bank, is not immune. Its shares are down more than 25 percent this year. Maybe Blankfein needs to remind Goldman's employees that they should be grateful to have jobs at a time when banks are laying off tens of thousands. They are plenty of eager people who could live without recreational Internet surfing who would love to take their place.

Goldman Sachs employees blocked from Facebook, Dealbreaker originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Seeing through the Bear Stearns conspiracy theories

Zac Bissonnette — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:54:00 EST

Filed under: Bear Stearns Cos (BSC)

I try not to do posts solely for the purpose of linking to someone else's great work but this item fro DealBreaker is probably the funniest thing I've read since Bear Stearns' insistence that its liquidity was fine: an article in the latest issue of Vanity Fair cites unnamed sources stating that a few well-known hedge funds plotted the company's demise -- and then laughed about it over a celebratory breakfast.

Bess Levin rips into the conspiracy theories with the post Who Killed Bear Stearns And Then Laughed About It At Denny's? We're Gonna Go With NO ONE:

Let's just say they did spread the rumors, which I don't believe they did (and, as an aside: if a company can be brought down by the corporate equivalent of 7th grade girls passing notes in class, perhaps it doesn't deserve to existence anyway). There is no way in hell this meal took place. Ken Griffin and Steve Cohen are not stupid enough to go chest bump over egg McMuffins with the rotting corpse of Bear Stearns at their table (that kind of genius is -- or was -- reserved for the upper echelons of BSC management).

Exactly.

Seeing through the Bear Stearns conspiracy theories originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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