Goldman 'Sacks'

Created and Posted by TSH

I’m very happy for the employees at Goldman, who’ve managed to completely kill it this past year and are, subsequently compensated (very well). What concerns me is the continued arrogance, greed and manipulation that ultimately made the bonus pot all the more golden.

Now, I’m all for a free marketplace. And, I do believe that performance-based bonuses are extremely important to the competitive marketplace. You need guys and gals going out every day, fighting in the pits to keep our economy moving. We need smart Americans to battle it out against other countries in the global marketplace. And, we need money coming into America in the form of dollar reserves, or from straight trade. We also need those funds to go to that person, so he, or she can get taxed highly, effectively stealing money from other countries and sending it right to Washington. In this way, competition and free markets are very necessary for our continued stature as a leading player in the world marketplace.

My problem, highlighted recently with the Goldman bonus announcement, is the lack of job creation. Let’s assume that government really gave money to failing banks to make loans and create jobs, (or stave off the impeding mass-firings). We know that what really happened was that banks didn’t make that many loans and fired a hell of a lot of employees. By taking advantage of the low interest rates, banks were thus able to receive good spreads in making quality loans, that, prior to the downturn, were not money generating business models.

Unemployment numbers, which are provided to us by government, are based on a period of time, like the last 3-6 months. The problem with this is that it’s not reflective of reality. Many people that got laid off in the very beginning of the downturn are not being counted in the unemployment numbers. So, we can then use initial jobless claims as a gauge, but, we’re still left with a very obvious gap. You don’t need to be a quant, or a sector analyst. You just need to ask those affected.

There’s a lot of really unhappy people out there. I don’t want to get all caught up in Obama policy, or Geithner’s financial revamping. I just want to remain concerned for the human aspect of all that went down and all that continues to remain unfixed. I guess I’m still left with a lot of questions: Why can’t banks start on-shoring stuff? Why are civil service jobs actually on the headcount decline? Where is the next big job opportunity market? Healthcare? Green services? Financial re-engineering, The Fed, or other watchdog-esque services? I just don’t really know any answers and it’s a bit scary.

I talk to a lot of people that remain unemployed and have absolutely no prospects. Some of them are in a real world of trouble. Sure, unemployment benefits got extended for a lot of them, but a lot are extremely close to foreclosure. And they have families. I just feel so terrible for them. I’m now motivated to do all I can to create jobs. Even on a small scale. I think money should be sent to organizations like the S.B.A (small business administration). If we gave a trillion dollars to loan to small businesses around the country, sure some would fail, but maybe that 140 bn that was generated by Goldman, could’ve been pieced out to 140 trillion Joe the Plumbers.

I think it is up to us to consume ourselves with helping our fellow man. Anyone with the resources should focus on helping another American put food on the table. Even if it’s something like opening a eatery that, maybe at the end of the year you’re flat, but you put 22 people to work that year. We need to do the right thing here, kind of like our grandparents did in fighting for our freedom. We need to fight for our stability.

-TSH