Blogs and Stories
Can Goldman Find God?
Jemal Countess / Getty Images
Lloyd Blankfein says Goldman Sachs is “doing God’s work.” Is it? A former Goldman partner, a minister, and seminary president have a biblically ambitious plan to help the company do just that.
As reported by The London Times, Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, said he saw his company “doing God’s work,” engaged in a “virtuous cycle” that fulfills a social good. Although the world most certainly needs well-functioning financial markets, doing God’s work involves so much more. Given that you brought it up, Mr. Blankfein, we’re delighted to welcome you into a conversation we’ve been having for a long time!
Three of us—a former Goldman Sachs partner, a seminary president, and a Presbyterian minister—sat down to discuss how Goldman could truly do God’s work.
What if Wall Street actually did truly commit itself to a new, virtuous cycle that defined ambition and success in terms of both profitability and the common good?
Maureen Dowd in her New York Times column spoke for a lot of people in America when she entitled her recent column, “Virtuous Bankers? Really!?!” contrasting that image of virtue with the notorious Rolling Stone characterization of Goldman Sachs as a “Giant Vampire Squid on the face of humanity.” The question Dowd’s article raises is whether it is truly possible for bankers to be virtuous. What exactly does virtue mean? One could do a lot worse than turn to the long and rich moral tradition of the classical “cardinal virtues” of prudence, justice, moderation, and courage, whose unifying theme is self-regulation, reining in the excesses of our will and desire.
But hasn’t self-regulation been in short supply on Wall Street (and everywhere else)? When asked, “Is it possible to make too much money?” Mr. Blankfein responded, “Is it possible to have too much ambition? Is it possible to be too successful?” Well, ambition and success are a lot like money: They’re neither good nor bad in and of themselves, but an awful lot depends on the ends to which you direct them. Mr. Blankfein suggests that Goldman and its competitors are directing them toward the common good by generating economic growth and monetary wealth in a virtuous cycle. However, making money is not enough to elevate the common good because “super-size” pay is anything but common—it is a circumstance enjoyed by a precious few, and amounts to trickle-down economics.
Furthermore, the values that have been governing American economic life, especially in the last decade or so, have not demonstrated much prudence, justice, or moderation; as a result, we are in a period of historic economic contraction and monetary bankruptcy. Though Wall Street certainly played a leading role, it was supported by a culture that increasingly affirmed: “I consume therefore I am.” What is stoking the fire now is that while the negative cycle continues to viciously dispossess millions of Americans of their jobs, their homes, their dignity, and their future, Wall Street’s record profits have created a new, closed cycle of seemingly unlimited money, ambition, and success. That is why so much anger is being directed toward Wall Street and especially toward Goldman Sachs, its undisputed leader.
But what if it were different? What if Wall Street actually did truly commit itself to a new, virtuous cycle that defined ambition and success in terms of both profitability and the common good? What if Goldman Sachs was the undisputed leader of that new cycle? As a start, what if Goldman’s well-paid people chose to redirect a generous portion of their bonus pool to create a new, for-profit, pooled investment fund? We even have a name for it: The Goldman Sachs Virtue Fund. This fund could be the highest-returning fund on social capital by, for example, providing low-interest loans to small businesses and new business startups. This fund could set the standard for corporate leadership in creating new jobs and bridging the massive gap between the growth of the financial markets and the stagnation of the jobs market, directly helping those who have suffered most in this crisis.
Stars Celebrate the Super Bowl
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
How Rich People Smoke Pot
Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
If Wall Street Repents, Can Main Street Forgive?
Jacki Zehner is the President of the Jacquelyn and Gregory Zehner Family Foundation and a Founding Partner of Circle Financial Group. She blogs at www.pursepundit.blogspot.com.
The Rev. Dr. Katharine Rhodes Henderson is the President of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, an institute for religious leadership, founded in 1818 with a history of commitment to progressive social causes from abolition of slavery to women's rights. She blogs at newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith.
If Wall Street Repents, Can Main Street Forgive?
Jacki Zehner is the President of the Jacquelyn and Gregory Zehner Family Foundation and a Founding Partner of Circle Financial Group. She blogs at www.pursepundit.blogspot.com.
The Rev. Dr. Katharine Rhodes Henderson is the President of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, an institute for religious leadership, founded in 1818 with a history of commitment to progressive social causes from abolition of slavery to women's rights. She blogs at newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith.
Atilla
What if Wall Street Banksters comitted themselves to honesty and honorable dealings?...Yep, What if angels flew out of Banksters asses every time they farted? What if intestinal worms stopped sucking the life blood of their hosts? Ain't gonna happen!.... Too big to fail is too big to be allowed to exist! Regulate them to death.
flyoverland
I've been praying for the last year that God would cause my Goldman account to go back up after they advised me to get into the market last year.
flyoverland
Honest to God, for being so great, my Goldman team has missed the housing crash, the credit crisis and the dot.com meltdown. Advice like "buy and hold" I can get at a discount brokerage. You'd think they would be able to see mega trends coming.
omahajim
being jewish, i find it hilarious that they invoke any other religion other than 'starve the poor and shoot them from helicopter gunships.' or maybe 'lets build a new guard tower for the worlds largest prison camp' or how about 'does this old lame yammuka make my bald head look fat?'
nortonclybourn
you're "being jewish" I find it hilarious that you can't spell yarmulke or write a coherent sentence.
HeadTinkler
Think this guy has a "Ego-God Syndrome" Kind of King Nebuchadnezzare in the book of Daniel?
VirtualFreeThinking
Human beings appear to be a slave race languishing on
an isolated planet in a small galaxy. As such, the human race
appears to be a source of labor. To keep control over this possession and to maintain Earth as something of a prison, that other civilizations have bred, never-ending conflict between human beings, has promoted human spiritual decay, and has erected on Earth conditions of unremitting physical hardship.
The strength of "Rabbi Blankfein" lies in his ability to represent simultaneously the interests of the Submissives and the Rulers, whose religious and political needs, respectively, now change to coincide.
People like Blankfein are regarded favourably by the Rulers as a politically submissive class, which, with its wide influence over the Masses could translate the Peace imposed by the Ruler into Religious precepts. To the submissives, on the other hand, this ideology gave/gives the appearance of continuity to self-rule and freedom...Fama Fraternitis is alive and well with Blankfein and Goldman Sachs.
Will Blankfein create competition for the Vatican?
Heaven help us.
Danbury
What is astounding, to me, is that Mr. Blankfein is so far gone, so amoral, that he could actually make such a statement publicly! This is one man so deeply immersed in a culture of greed and the Peter Principle, he can no longer see what is wrong with what he said and so declared it with no sense of shame or embarrassment whatsoever.
We've actually seen many of these Wall Streeters portraying themselves as victims, ie: the exec who wrote the New York Times piece. It is stunning how far removed from reality these people became as their net worth grew.
No wonder they all want to live in gated communities. Reinforces their belief that they should even by physically separated from the riff-raff.
Want to do God's work, Mr. Blankfein? Live humbly and modestly. Know others. Know how your actions affect EVERYONE, not just the few in your inner circle, but those who are negatively impacted as well.
neverlate
Virtuous? I'd settle for moderately competent. Maybe even the lower level virtue of Dawinian capitalism, where success, not failure, is rewarded. Forget the virtue of a higher level calling.
ardeth
One hardly needs to find God to be ethical, in fact,often it's a liability, but hey, whatever works for these greedy corporate types.
Genni2002
Agreed!
and I must add that all the troubles that we have had, every single time, have been caused by the financial / Wall Streeter type / Insurance guys. Thank GOD, or whatever idol one wants to, that the rest of us are decent folks, skilled at carrying out our jobs, responsible, caring individuals.
sonofloud
"What if Wall Street actually did truly commit itself to a new, virtuous cycle that defined ambition and success in terms of both profitability and the common good?"
The problem here is equating the "common good" with what is good for a "church" and they are most definitely not the same thing.
I grew up in metro Detroit and often heard "what is good for GM is good for the country" and you see how well that turned out.
hammer
Lloyd Blankfein is not Goldman Sachs. He is merely the CEO of an extremely successful corporation whose primary responsibility fiduciary should be to its shareholders. Somehow, in the past fifteen to twenty years this simple tenet has been usurped by executive insiders and clouded by government officials and community advocates. Along the way the board of directors have either been stacked so they nearly always favor insiders or simply neglect their responsibility to shareholders. As result we have ended up in a situation where Goldman and many other financial firms view it as a right to be paid extraordinary amounts of money despite strong evidence that it isn't an absolute necessity and that extraneous factors have created extraordinary opportunities. We have created a marketplace where people like Blankfein evoke religious, philosophical and sports analogies to justify their so-called rights to be over compensated.
The government has permitted Goldman Sachs to survive through zero financing from the Fed discount window, $10 billion in capital when none was available, TALF backed bonds and the bailout of AIG that let Goldman receive $ for $ on CDS derivatives that were only worth 25 cent on the dollar. GS was able to receive $18bn in collateral from AIG. Plus the government has intentionally driven the yield curve to be sharply upward sloping to bailout lenders. If you could borrow at 0.25% and invest at 3.25% on hundred of billions then it is easy to make money "trading." Also as a consequence of a zero interest rates and trillion dollar deficits the US dollar has collapsed. The government has clearly created billions of dollars of "strong trading" opportunities for Goldman and most of Wall Street. Without these explicit supports Goldman and others would probably not have survived last year's market collapse.
Now these robber barons have the gall to pay in excess of $16 billion in bonuses to staff or $600,000 per person. It is easy to estimate the benefits they received from the government. Goldman should do the right thing and return its "excess" profits to its shareholders and let them decide if they want to give it away to charities or simply spend it. There is nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong with taking money when it isn't deserved.
MCrothers
Beast, sign this guy up. I like it. cogent, pointed, well argued. . . . a footnote: wherefore art thou shareholder capitalism? Gone, gone like the host of a thousand years' yesterdays all in a row. Government IS Business and vice versa. Not much talk about Charles Schumpeter anymore in the every day trades because 'Creative Destruction' as an economic consequence (or symptom of a system's health?) has been anesthetized. What are the new models for a system based upon 'Socialism with American characteristics?' -- this inverse of the the President of the China Investment Corporation's characterization of their market-based economy as "socialism with Chinese characteristics." Behavioral Economists and former Marxist Economists need to concoct new paradigms to help us map out the growth models in our new interdependent economy as a consumer/service nation -- what 'real wealth?'
Yesterday, John McCain blasted the auto bailouts. "It was all about the unions. The unions didn't want to have their very generous contracts renegotiated so we put $80 billion into both General Motors and Chrysler, and anybody believes that Chrysler is going to survive, I'd like to meet them," McCain said. So, there we have an 'entitlement' going the other way . . . to the common folks (a very narrow section of common people, I might add). My brother, a union plumber and elected leader in his local, says that they do not think the UAW is good for the cause of union membership, advancement or past achievement. Shareholder Capitalism is dead. What are we thinking? It's an insiders game . . . like the Russian Oligarchs pledging fealty to Putin/Medeved or a highly developed Plutocracy where survival is about who you know. Clearly, the Bankers know how to get into the Treasury, and that's all that matters -- the softening of this massive re-valuation perhaps avoided a Great Depression, but it put 20 million Americans into a position to consider social unrest a palpable outcome. A quote from De Tocqueville's "The Old Regime & the French Revolution" apropos of this suspension of market capitalism: " . . .when the judiciary intervenes in administrative matters, only material interests suffer; but when the State tampers with the course of justice, the effect is to unsettle men's minds and to render them at once servile and revolutionary-minded (Chpt. 4, p. 55)." Shareholder rights, the rules of Bankruptcy . . .the sting of true market dynamics. Not anymore. Just a slow rot of a jobless recovery and the whitewash of job fairs and noxious can-do-it-ism.
I take my spiritual call outs in church, and to have this man invoking the virtues of capital is a bit like listening to British Colonial thinkers pontificate about 'White Man's Burden' -- lifting up the primitive, unproductive, miserably unenlightened people out of their apparent misery. Yes, there will be concomitant disease, re-distribution of land, wealth and customs, but it will be 'better.'
tomfarr
Transform Goldman into a do-good organization? Don't be ridiculous. The simple remedy for greed lies in the income tax laws. Confiscatory taxation of annual income above ten million dollars would work wonders.
Genni2002
...and some form of regulation by a group that doesn't prostitute themselves to the highest bidder university buddies.
DakLak
Just shows people what a guy raking in million or billions of dollars has for brains. And the arrogance.
Obviously he is over paid. God, indeed. May be the real one will cut him down to size.
sophia5
" Lloyd Blankfein says Goldman Sachs is " doing God's work. "
Since when does " God " ever get bailed out ?
sophia5
Is that a " 666 " on Mr. Blankfein's forehead ?
athenacom
I want some of whatever Blankfein is smoking.
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.