Banking Law

A report in today's Wall Street Journal about consumer advocates organizing a hash-tag "tea party" to assault what the advocates thought was a Goldman Sachs Twitter account, but that turned out to be a fake Tweeter Bird, wasn't quite as amusing as the "Goldman Sex" fiasco, but it was close.

ACORN, a grassroots housing advocacy organization, and MomsRising, an online community of mothers, told their members and the Twitter public at large to tweet ?petition @GS_NEWS Prevent home foreclosures with the MHA program now! http://act.ly/5l retweet to sign #Homewrecker.? Their goal is to get Goldman, and three other institutions, to sign on with President Obama?s new Making Home Affordable (MHA) Program.

Except  @GS_NEWS is not Goldman. GS_NEWS? Twitter page is decorated with a Goldman Sachs logo and tweets about Goldman Sachs news. But, Goldman doesn?t have a presence on Twitter at all, says Andrea Rachman, a spokesperson for the bank. The owner of the @GS_NEWS account could not be reached via Twitter for comment.

According to the story, Acorn and the risen Moms are in a tizzy because Goldman Sachs-owned loan servicer Litton hasn't signed on to "The One's" Making Homes Affordable Program, in which borrowers who had no business taking out loans on their original terms get more generous loan terms so that they can remain in homes they can't afford for awhile longer, hopefully at least until after the next round of Congressional elections. "The One's" mantra is that popularly attributed to another ruler anointed by God, Louis XV: "Après moi, le déluge." As Luke Mullins pointed out today, recently released figures by federal bank regulators show that a majority of modified loans go back into default. Then again, those figures don't include modifications performed in accordance with "The Change We Have Been Waiting For"'s more generous terms, so perhaps the red(ink) sea will part and all those underwater borrowers will scramble to safety onshore before the waves of reality come crashing down upon them again.

Apparently unimpressed with the off-target misfiring of the consumer advocacy twits, Goldman Sachs has decided to continue to hang tough with its own loan modification policies.

?Litton loan modification activities are consistent with the Home Affordable Modification Program,? Ms. Rachman says. ?And we very much hope to formalize our participation in the program, but we need clarification from Treasury on whether it will affect our ability to hire the people we need to run our business effectively.?

Goldman's lack of faith in our "A Deal Is Not A Deal" federal government is well warranted. And as long as faux Goldman social media sites continue to make fools out of its opponents, Goldman ought to be able to weather the PR wars in fine shape.