From Wall Street titan should explain what he does for a living by Bob Greene:
... This month, Goldman announced that its profits in the last three months alone were $3 billion.
If the final quarter continues on this prosperous pace, Goldman's year-end bonus pool may exceed $20 billion, according to the New York Times -- enough to pay its 31,700 employees an average of $700,000.
That's the kind of news that many Americans may find difficult to swallow as a grim Christmas season arrives.
No wonder the anger at Wall Street is real and visceral.
But here is a modest proposal.
It has to do with Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chairman of Goldman Sachs.
Blankfein, it has been reported, may receive a year-end bonus that is even larger than the one he got two years ago.
Which is really saying something, seeing that his 2007 bonus was $67.9 million.
Here's the proposal:
Blankfein should go on television and make a public service announcement.
Not one of those 30-second ones that run late at night, promoting various worthy causes.
Blankfein should prepare a 30-minute announcement, to be delivered by him personally. He should buy time during the prime evening viewing hours on all the major networks.
He should look into the camera and, as a service to an irate country, answer one simple question:
"What exactly do you do for a living?"
He should answer the question specifically, and in detail.
What is it that he and his employees do every day that makes their work so much more valuable than the work done by virtually anyone else in America?
This proposal is not made sarcastically; it's not a joke. Many of us don't know what Goldman Sachs does to make those billions of dollars in profits. And evidently those of us who are in the dark are not alone. New York Times business reporter Jenny Anderson, in a story on Goldman's success: "Quarter after quarter, Wall Street executives scour Goldman's results hoping to figure out how the bank makes so much money." ...
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