But before that, in view of the publicity that has been given to a careless passing reference to God towards the end of the interview, (and which has occasioned a number of lunatic fringe contributions in the comments column) , I thought I'd start with one of my own favourites quotes. It comes from Ben Johnson's comedy, Volpone. Here is Volpone, the old fox himself , speaking as he gazes lovingly on his gold:
"Riches, the dumb god, that givest all men tongues,
That canst do nought, and yet mak'st men do all things;
The price of soul; even hell, with thee to boot,
Is made worth heaven"
So here are two short excerpts from John Arlidge's interview with Lloyd Blankfein.
Blankfein, acknowledging the public dislike of the banks these days, says:
"I know I could slit my wrists and people would cheer." But then, he slowly begins to argue the case for modern banking. "We’re very important," he says, abandoning self-flagellation. "We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It’s a virtuous cycle." To drive home his point, he makes a remarkably bold claim. "We have a social purpose."
Later, Arlidge discusses why Goldman Sachs came out of the sub prime mortgage debacle better than other banks. He points up the fanatical attention to detail that characterises the company, and explains:
"Take the sub-prime mortgage sector, the ticking toxic debt bomb that detonated the economic crisis. One year before bad home loans brought down Lehman and Bear Stearns, forced shotgun marriages of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America and HBOS to Lloyds, and made Royal Bank of Scotland a national joke, Goldman’s daily valuations revealed it had suffered modest losses in its mortgage holdings for just over a week. At most banks, the losses might have gone unnoticed or been dismissed as a rounding error, but Goldman convened a meeting of senior bankers to try to find out what was going on. Even though the housing and mortgage markets were still buoyant, the bank did not like what it saw and began reducing its exposure. When the credit crunch hit, its losses in the mortgage sector were only $1.7 billion, lower than any other big investment bank. UBS lost $58 billion."
Note the final sentence. How are the mighty fallen? $58 billion down the drain - God in Heaven, what were UBS doing? Whatever possessed them to get into such murky waters when their whole raison d'etre is asset and wealth management
As for the apparent quote from Blankfein, 'I'm just a banker doing God's work," - for goodness sake lighten up, you people, it was a joke!
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