Oh my Goldman

I got a first-hand sense of how badly Goldman Sachs felt the pressure of the crumbling financial markets this morning.   

At the start of a private company's board meeting I was attending, a director received a call on his cell phone.  One member of the board had not yet arrived, so the director answered the call in case it was the missing attendee.  He dispatched with the caller after about a minute.

The caller turned out to be his broker from Goldman Sachs who was calling to relay a simple message: If Goldman goes under, don't worry, your assets will still be safe.

I almost fell out of my chair.  The senior executives at Goldman decided the perceived threat to the investment bank was so great that they instructed brokers to call clients proactively to address concerns about the company's failure.  Wow.