I'm doing 'God's work'. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs
The Sunday Times gains unprecedented access to the world's most powerful, and most secretive, investment bank
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6907681.eceIt’s the site of the best cash-making machine that global capitalism has ever produced, and, some say, a political force more powerful than governments. The people who work behind the brass-trim glass doors make more money than some countries do. They are the rainmakers’ rainmakers, the biggest swinging dicks in the financial jungle. Their assets total $1 trillion, their annual revenues run into the tens of billions, and their profits are in the billions, which they distribute liberally among themselves. Average pay this recessionary year for the 30,000 staff is expected to be a record $700,000. Top earners will get tens of millions, several hundred thousand times more than a cleaner at the firm. When they have finished getting "filthy rich by 40", as the company saying goes, these alpha dogs don’t put their feet up. They parachute into some of the most senior political posts in the US and beyond, prompting accusations that they "rule the world". Number 85 Broad Street is the home of Goldman Sachs.
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For Blankfein, in the end, it all comes down to one thing: finding the best, fastest, and safest way to make money with money, then make some more money, with money on top. He’s not interested in a reality check, just a bumper pay cheque for his clients, for his firm, for his staff, for his shareholders and, eventually, he believes, for us. His almost religious devotion to the dogma of finance is thrown into stark relief just before I walk out of the building with no name and find myself back in the autumn sunshine. I ask him the question that, in these troubled times, you’d think anyone — from the guy outside 85 Broad selling 99-cent chilli dogs to the gazillionaire King of Wall Street sitting 30 storeys above — would pause before answering. And then, perhaps, offer an equivocal, on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand answer, whether he means it or not. Is it possible to make too much money?
"Is it possible to have too much ambition? Is it possible to be too successful?" Blankfein shoots back. "I don’t want people in this firm to think that they have accomplished as much for themselves as they can and go on vacation. As the guardian of the interests of the shareholders and, by the way, for the purposes of society, I’d like them to continue to do what they are doing. I don’t want to put a cap on their ambition. It’s hard for me to argue for a cap on their compensation."
So, it’s business as usual, then, regardless of whether it makes most people howl at the moon with rage? Goldman Sachs, this pillar of the free market, breeder of super-citizens, object of envy and awe will go on raking it in, getting richer than God? An impish grin spreads across Blankfein’s face. Call him a fat cat who mocks the public. Call him wicked. Call him what you will. He is, he says, just a banker "doing God’s work"
Is it any wonder they feel that way? The complete and abject arrogance! They've NEVER been held accountable for their heinous crimes against the global economy as they are continually bailed out and continually given lax regulation and even outright beneficial legislation.
There are SO many aspects of our government that need reform but until we start with what really runs the world (the Too Big investment firms), then we're just pissing into the wind.
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