The wider public might view investment bankers as ‘vampire squid’, as one commentator put it, but the newspaper of the business world has made him its ‘person of the year’
. . . .
In the parallel universe inhabited by the FT, Blankfein is a hero – a “master of risk”. The FT accepts that Blankfein has struggled to find an effective rebuttal of a deluge of public criticism unleashed on his bank.
But it says the former gold trader from the Bronx has “steered Goldman adeptly through the crisis, betting correctly that the global investment banks would survive the turmoil (with government help) and not be dismantled by regulators”.
The FT’s John Gapper continues: “The bank has stuck to its strengths, unashamedly taking advantage of the low interest rates and diminished competition resulting from the crisis to make big trading profits.”
How charitable. This is the bank that intends to distribute about $22bn in remuneration to its employees this year – more than $700,000 each – at the height of the worst recession since the war. Money, of course, partly earned through government support of the US banking sector paid for with taxpayers’ funds.
(Read more from guardian.co.uk)
See Also: