Wall Street's Remake of Heathers

Remember Heathers? This Wall Street rumor mill story is starting to resemble the 1989 cult flick, where high school outcasts plot to take down the most popular girls in class.

In this version, Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein is the lead Heather. Bear Stearns' Alan Schwartz and Lehman's Dick Fuld are the less popular Heathers--their friendship with the lead Heather is really just political. They hope their association with her will help them to become the lead Heather themselves one day.

Will they talk about her behind her back? Yes. Would they be willing to stab her in the back if it helped their cause? Yes.

Will the lead Heather use her power and influence to eliminate them from the most sought after clique in school? Oh, yes.

Today's Wall Street Journal story plays out this very plot. Schwartz and Fuld reportedly approached Blankfein about the "noise" about how Goldman traders were allegedly spreading rumors about Bear Stearns and Lehman.

Bear, you'll recall, didn't survive the rumor mill. Lehman is holding on for dear life. Goldman is doing just fine.

Goldman denies the allegations. Blankfein says he doesn't remember the conversation with Schwartz. It's starting to look a lot less fun at the most popular lunch table in the cafeteria.

Enter Veronica and J.D., being played by the S.E.C. and other federal regulators. They've had enough of these vain and bitchy Heathers and they hope to dismantle the entire operation even it means killing one of them off entirely.

The top securities cop has reportedly subpoenaed trading information from Goldman, Deutsche Bank, and Merrill Lynch, and more than 50 hedge funds on the hunt for evidence of spreading false rumors.

In the movie, Veronica survives, but J.D. blows himself up. The lesser Heathers also survive, but they emerge with less power than they had before Veronica showed up.

And what about the lead Heather? That's where this version takes a turn. The lead Heather gets killed early in the movie, but Goldman is likely to remain the most popular name on Wall Street for the foreseeable future.

Martha Dumptruck is perhaps the biggest winner in the flick--she doesn't have many friends, but she emerges a survivor, befriended by the now popular Veronica in the last moments of the movie.

On Wall Street, Martha is played by --who else? -- short-sellers.

by Megan Barnett