Reacting swiftly and with the compassion it is so often accused of lacking, Wall Street’s top CEO’s and bankers rallied to the aid Goldman Sachs’ CEO Lloyd Blankfein, announcing a weekend fundraising telethon for the industry trailblazer in the aftermath of his devastating 2009 bonus.
Just hours after his firm announced that Blankfein would be receiving just a $9 million bonus, housed in 58,000 shares of the banks’ ever-climbing stock, other top bankers on Wall Street released a statement urging every American to "give what they can" to help Blankfein "weather this recession."
"It’s almost as if he’s taking a bullet for everyone else," said Mark Borges, a principal with Compensia Inc., a Northern California compensation consulting firm.***
Organizers for the telethon, which will be aired live from Goldman’s Financial District headquarters and aired live on CNBC and FOX Business Channel, announced the event will be hosted by comedian turned talk radio host Dennis Miller, and feature guest appearances from conservative superstars such as John Larroquette, Ben Stein and Craig T. Nelson.
A later press release also announced that organizers had received commitments from a number of prominent orchestras to play live and via satellite.
Wearing long, serious faces and black velveteen armbands with Blankfein’s initials, L.B., scrawled across, bank CEO’s stood in solidarity as they announced the "urgent" fundraising event. Particularly disturbed was JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who earned a $17 million bonus this year and is a close friend of Blankfein.
"The devastation this has wrought on Lloyd is incredible," said Dimon, who was in perhaps the best position to understand. Dimon received only stock as a bonus in 2008 and had to suffer the embarrassment of living an entire two years on his 2007 bonus of $27.8 million.
"I don’t think the American public can quite understand what it is to have to budget for two long years, both fiscally and mentally," Dimon said. "He’s having his take home bonus slashed nearly in five, and that takes just a barbaric toll on a man," Dimon said, now near tears, no doubt remembering his own suffering.
Indeed, the event was planned quickly to help spare Blankfein from much of that embarrassment, as a number of bankers recalled the social awkwardness in boardrooms Dimon suffered when he declined to join in eating gold plated mahi mahi at company retreats to Tahiti.
"It was really uncomfortable," said one JP executive on condition of anonymity. "At one point Jamie was declining caviar at least once a week, and one time we saw his wife picking him up in their Bentley, instead of his usual driver. He put on a brave face, but you could tell that he was hurting. We don’t want to see that happen to Lloyd. It was pathetic."
***This quote was actually uttered by a real "human".
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