CLUELESS: Goldman CEO defends bonuses as sign of recovery

[rfranklin]

Goldman CEO defends bonuses as sign of recovery:

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s chief executive defended the U.S. bank's bonus policies in an interview with U.K.'s Sunday Times, saying banks serve a "social purpose," and the return of high pay should be seen a sign of economic recovery.

"Everybody should be happy. Companies are looking to grow again and raise money. That's where we come in. The financial system may have led us into the crisis but it will lead us out," Lloyd Blankfein was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

According to the Times, Blankfein's pay package is likely to total GBP12 million this year, adding to the GBP300 million in Goldman shares he holds.

The average 2009 pay for the bank's 30,000 staff is expected at GBP420,000, the newspaper added.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/goldman-ceo-defends-bonuses-as-sign-of-recovery-report-2009-11-08

[Botany]

1. Average pay in U.S. $s $697,200.00

they caused this crap w/ their derivatives, hedge funds, and bundled mortgages ..... horse whipping is too
good for them.

[dschis]

2. What should happen

Some of those guys should be put through a training course that entail them to be actually poor. I mean -wondering where you're going to get your next meal from poor- for a certain time before assuming one these posts. My Grandpa says "People nowadays don't know what being hungry is". I have to agree. Oh yeah he lived through the Depression and fought in WWII.

[JDPriestly]

3. My doctor and my lawyer owe me as a consumer a duty of

care, of loyalty, and confidentiality. Why doesn't my banker?

I do not want the person to whom I entrust my meager life savings to be motivated by a bigger and bigger paycheck. I want that person to be motivated by providing me the best service that he or she can provide. I want the person to whom I entrust my money to be held to the same ethical standards as my doctor and my lawyer. They should put my interests above their own. This should be the law. Bankers should be licensed. Their conduct should be governed by boards of ethics just as is the conduct of other professionals. How do we change the law to require that bankers abide by codes of ethics?

[The Magistrate]

4. Spoken, Sir, Like A True Lamp-Post Decoration....

It is a shame true mobbing has gone so completely out of style....