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Why (as in yaverbaum)
entreat them in any other way that could be seen as bestowing a finan- cial benefit. This was a particularly good rule, as the RTC was the second largest pork barrel in Washington, with thousands of contracts for services to be contested for. (First was the Pentagon.) Unfortunately, when it came to financial advisors, one rule was very much at total vari- ance with their lifestyle. Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street people were quite used to dining well, which meant dining expensively and drinking expensively. They were on seemingly unlimited expense accounts and quite used to taking clients to the best places in attempts to seal deals. RTC employees were forbidden to accept meals that cost in excess of twenty-five dollars. Unfortunately, that amount could just about take you through a drink and part of an appetizer at some of the more likely venues for business lunches. The financial-advisor types were aware of the restriction but could not restrain themselves from dining well and thereby impressing and, I suppose, rewarding their counterparts in the government. You would be forced to do business with them during meals, which, with a wink and a nod, they would say cost only the permitted amount—twenty-five dollars. Most RTC peo- ple, forced to go to such meals, would go along with the charade. I couldn’t and felt that I had to pay for my share of a meal to the extent that it exceeded twenty-five dollars. I could afford it, grudgingly, but I’m sure that many of my colleagues could not. I guess that complying with the rule makes me a man of principle, or someone who was lucky enough to afford to comply, or maybe just a fearful goody-goody.
Politics was not just appearances. When a letter would come into our office from a senator or, more likely, a representative, the entire world would have to stop. Such letters were referred to by us as “con- gressionals,” and no matter how fatuous they were, they demanded a swift, respectful response. Inasmuch as the RTC was in the business of selling assets to the public and dealing with loans in default, the letters either complained of unfairness in the disposition of an asset or of the unwillingness of the agency to settle a litigation favorably to a constitu- ent. It was difficult to tell whether the Congressman truly sought a result, one that was not consistent with the statute that governed the
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