First published on 19.02.2010.
The Oscar’s are coming up so it is a good opportunity to delve into some divergent areas of celebrity activism. One of the most interesting competitions this year is for the Best Documentary category, where among the strong group of short listed films is the scathing critique of the Financial Crisis, Inside Job.
Although narrated by Matt Damon, the ‘stars’ of the documentary come from not from the world of Hollywood but finance with supporting roles from policy-makers and some (under performing) economists. Among the big questions it triggered for me is whether we can depict non-entertainers as celebrities?
In the case of business celebrity status is accorded to those who not only make massive amounts of money but who give some of that money back through philanthropy. Ted Turner, George Soros, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett stand out.
How do the stars of Inside Job such as the leading lights of Goldman Sachs do according to this test? Some ex-Goldman Sachs have certainly tried to make the shift to this status. In the same week I saw Inside Job, The Financial Times accorded the ‘How to give it’ to Larry Linden, a retired (2008) general partner and managing director of Goldman Sachs. Linden maintains that Goldman Sachs ‘has a longstanding charitable tradition, which continues. For example in 2004 we acquired 840,000 acres of pristine forest in Tierra del Fuego as collateral on a package of distressed debt. I was asked back from retirement to arrange management and funding to conserve it permanently’.
I will leave it to readers to their own views whether such action shifts the impression of Inside Job of Goldman Sachs from notoriety to celebrity.
But certainly what is needed is a closer assessment about the philanthropy from the financial sector. Before the crisis there ware laudatory stories of Hank Paulson, the former US Treasury Secretary and head of Goldman Sachs, preparing to give the bulk of his fortune (then estimated as $800 million) to environmental charities. Where does this promise stand now?
Even if the extremely negative depiction of Goldman Sachs in Inside Job is unfair, however, other executives of this firm and their counterparts should get better advice about the names of the charitable Foundations they support. The best or worst illustration of this image disconnect is the participation of Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs (along with Dick Fuld formerly of Lehman Bros.) in the Robin Hood Foundation, an organization designed to target poverty in New York City.
After watching Inside Job, many viewers would say that any association of these financiers with a narrative of ‘robbing from the rich to give to the poor’ should be reversed.
