Goldman: Pay 'Inequality' Is Good

With Wall Street expected to hand out billions in bonuses this year, one Goldman Sachs adviser defended the gap between the paychecks in finance and those elsewhere Tuesday by saying that the discrepancy helps the economy. "We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all,” Brian Griffiths, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher and currently an adviser for Goldman Sachs International, said at a panel discussion in London. The investment bank set aside $16.7 billion for compensation and benefits in the first 9 months of 2009, a jump of 46 percent from last year.