An Open Letter to London: This Goldman Sachs Scam Is Old
Dear London Mayor Boris Johnson and Darren Johnson, AKA, the funsy gay guy who is chair of the London Assembly;
So you two do realize that this is a transparent ruse, yes? That Goldman Sachs "is understood to be considering its options in the wake of the UK's windfall tax on bankers' bonuses, a new 50pc top income tax rate, and increased banking regulations" is hilarious, and it is also a dead giveaway that the Telegraph uses the phrasing "is understood" to introduce this idea. Let's see: here's an incredibly-secretive, super-private financial institution of which it can be "understood" that they're going directly to the papers as the first volley in a bargaining plan. But: hilarious! They're going to pretend that they're willing to leave London? They're going to offshore the London office? To where? Glamorous downtown Sofia? Belfast? Tallinn or Toronto? Think it through, boys. Nobody who works in that office will leave London! What's the point of being rich if you have to live somewhere crappy? It just doesn't work like that. You can near-shore and off-shore the jobs no one wants to Salt Lake City or wherever—but you can't move the income producers to a town where they can't get a cab and a fat steak. If you give Goldman Sachs anything at all to stay put, it means you both are huge morons, just like New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg was when GS pretended it was going to move from downtown Manhattan to more expensive quarters in midtown, and they wouldn't even have done that. Ever.
Our fondest regards,
The Awl
That would be a fitting punishment, though, shipping those fuckers to Bulgaria or Utah.
Toronto is not crappy, you…you…you big poopypants.
/runs sobbing from room
Is too.
Technically, if GS moved to Belfast, they'd still be in the UK, so they'd still be subject to all that onerous taxation and regulation, plus their chances of being machine-gunned by masked paramilitaries would radically increase. Win-win!
I bet they're all huffy and oh-so-charmingly befuddled over this.
Monocles falling onto shirtfronts.
Cravats popping open.
Go on London! Make me proud, call the fuckers bluff!
They did already let Dubai buy that big Ferris wheel, so, yeah, I think that their tolerance for poorly-securitized finance-related bluffing is pretty low. I'm cool with that.
Have you been to Dubai?
definitely > London
Does this have to mean that I'm not a finance-y big-shot player superstar macho if my office is in Jersey City? There was a limo parked outside today, doesn't that make me a baller? Please?