"Crisis".... Goldman Sachs' Middle Name

It appears as if the word "crisis" has surrounded Goldman Sachs over the past year, and rightfully so. As explained in an earlier post, last year Goldman Sachs was ridiculed and one of the most hated businesses because of it receiving $13 billion in bailout money, most as a result of AIG's tragic downfall. So what was Goldman Sachs supposed to do with this money? Your guess is as good as any other good-standing American. SAVE IT FOR A RAINY DAY!!! Apparently for GS, that rainy day came at the end of 2008 when they gave out millions and millions of dollars in bonus money away.

But wait...what about this Christmas. As many of us are really feeling our thinning wallets. There's no way GS could top that could it? Yes, in 2009 GS is about to break records , ain't that just lovely. A nice lil pace of $21 billion for bonuses.

I guess the old saying of, when the poor get poorer, the rich get richer...is quite true with our good ol' buddies at Goldman Sachs.

But wait, A ha! Eureka!.... Have Goldman Sachs finally gotten something through their heads? After the media coverage and the continuous criticism, Goldman Sachs has issued this response.


"A little more than a week after Goldman’s chairman and chief executive drew fire for saying the Wall Street giant was “doing God’s work,” the bank said Tuesday that it would spend $500 million — or about 3 percent of the $16.7 billion it has so far set aside to pay its employees this year — to help thousands of small businesses recover from the recession."

Not bad....not great, but certainly not bad. After all, we are living in a dog eat dog kind of world. And Goldman Sachs, is surely one of the biggest dogs.

I don't think this is enough though. Let's do some simple math....

As of 7/2008 there were 304,059,724 people in the US
There were about 22,500 Goldman Sachs employees

$21 billion was set aside for 22,500 employees. and.... the rest of the 300+ million, their neighbors, get a measly(in comparison) $500 million.

Although it's easy for me to say, because I'm not getting that bonus. But I would man up. Look in the mirror and say hey! Let's be greedy, but not be freaks. $500 million for us, and everything else to charity, maybe even create a new charity to help new businesses, maybe even work with the government (because we know they know how to do that alright) and create a refund for new businesses. Whatever they chose to do, let's do it with big dollar signs eyes..for the people, not for Goldman Sachs