Der Spiegel interviews Goldman CEO: the man has no clue

[pscot]

'We Didn't Realize How Bad Things Would Get'

If you decide to read the whole thing, you may want to have a barfbag handy.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,650289,00.html

'We Didn't Realize How Bad Things Would Get'
In a SPIEGEL interview, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, 55, discusses his astronomical bonuses, the mistakes and failures of his bank prior to the start of the global financial crisis and his proposals for better regulating financial markets.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Blankfein, two years ago, your $67.9 million bonus was the largest ever paid to a Wall Street banker. You recently said that you could understand the anger that people are expressing over inflated bonuses. How are we to understand this?

Blankfein: I think people legitimately question whether compensation is tied to performance and, looking back, they see that some people were enriched but did not seem to have any alignment with their shareholders. A large part of the compensation paid to our senior people, including mine, is paid in shares, which may be worth less or more depending on our performance well after they were granted. This is what our shareholders want and we are convinced of this alignment of interests.

[BeyondGeography]

1. What a bullshit answer

At least most Germans will have the common sense to laugh their heads off when they read that. Credit to Der Spiegel for asking the question three different ways in the interview.

[metapunditedgy]

2. Sounds like he's admitting shareholder fraud, which is illegal.

The talk about getting paid in shares instead of money is also BS; it costs the company money to give those shares. I'll trade my annual bonus (in cash) for his bonus (in shares) any day.