Happy Face 29 Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 “The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest, we have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.” -Goldman Sachs International adviser Brian Griffiths http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...aODA&pos=11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJS 4355 Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 “The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest, we have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.” -Goldman Sachs International adviser Brian Griffiths http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...aODA&pos=11 Theres a simpler JC quote that takes care of him (and probably 95% of other Christians in the world today) - the one about rich men, eyes of needles, camels and heaven. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted November 5, 2009 Author Share Posted November 5, 2009 I didn’t believe this story was true at first — thought it had to be a spoof. But it turns out to be true. The great banks of the world have gone on a p.r. counteroffensive in Europe, and are sending spokescrooks in shiny suits into churches to persuade the masses that Christ would have approved of the latest round of obscene bonuses. Goldman Sachs international adviser Brian Griffiths explains it this way: that Christ’s famous injunction to love others as one would love oneself actually means that one should love oneself as one would love oneself. This seemingly baffling outburst by a Goldman executive in what appears to have been a prepared speech — someone actually wrote this, and thought about it, before saying it out loud — gets even weirder when one tries to figure out what could possibly have motivated this person, and by extension his employer Goldman Sachs, to make such statements in such a place as St. Paul’s Cathedral. Because there are only a couple of possibilities, and both of them are equally unnerving. One is that they know how preposterous this is and are just saying this shit because they think enough people will fall for it that it will end up being a net plus, optics-wise. I seriously doubt this and think the converse is much more likely: that they actually believe this to be true, or are trying to believe it is true, and by making the case publicly hope to persuade the world to see the light (and just maybe reaffirm to themselves in the process) and embrace the Orwellian propositions that greed is love and taking is sharing. It’s not hard to imagine how they could actually believe this stuff. Absolutely the dumbest people in the world, always and without fail, are intellectuals. Anyone who has ever sat in with a bunch of Yalie grad students while they discuss Kafka– they’ve read every book in the world about him, right down to the nineteen different Marxist critical interpretations of The Castle, but it’s somehow eluded them that Kafka’s stories are funny — knows what I mean. It’s a particular kind of mental disability. This is dumbness that doesn’t know how to connect the information coming in from their other sensory organs, i.e. from the outside world, to whatever flowery kaleidoscope of overwrought horseshit their professors sent hurtling on a permanent lifelong spin-cycle in their empty skulls back when they were eighteen. We all go through the same phase at the same age and most all of us fall for more than a few dumb ideas in the same way. The difference is that most of us normal people end up having soon after to go out into the world, where we get rudely introduced to the fact that life is mean and unforgiving and confusing as hell and that if you try to go through it leaning on some neat, gift-wrapped package of intellectual theories given to you by some preening old clown in a cardigan, you will very quickly become ridiculous and incompetent to manage your own life. You’ll notice it, your friends will notice it, the opposite sex will notice it, and certainly the meritocracy known as the capitalist job market will know it. This is true in every case, with one big exception. If you happen to be a rich dweeb who went to the right schools and hung around with the same group of people your whole life, and those people actually run the world, well, then, you’re in the very happy position of having your own bullshit adolescent belief system become self-reinforcing. You think that reality coincides with your beliefs because your beliefs are true, whereas in truth it’s because you spend all your time with people who believe the same nonsense you do, and generations of your cultural ancestors just happen to have built very high walls all around you fools to keep reality from getting in and spoiling things. Nothing else explains people like Alan Greenspan and Megan McArdle and all those other idiotic Ayn Rand devotees, big and small, who continually go out there in public and flog pseudo-religious beliefs about the self-correcting free-market as a cure-all for anything and everything, even as evidence to the contrary rains down from the sky like volcanic ash. These people actually believe this shit and they believe it with the imbecilic ferocity of teenagers, even the ones who are 190 years old like Greenspan (who incidentally finally conceded a “flaw” in his thinking, but only after the entire world exploded and even all the reality-proof friendly data sources he had relied upon for his whole life told him his ideas were fucked), and it’s nearly impossible to get them to let so much as a sliver of their belief systems go. There are lots of different varieties of evil in the world. On the extreme end of the spectrum you’ve probably got your Ted Bundy-at-Lake-Sammamish brand of evil, torturers and such, people who actually take pleasure in the suffering of others. You look at people like that and they defy rational explanation; you have to just chalk that up to the universe basically being a horrifying place where there’s either no God at at all or a God who’s just incompetent and/or explaining himself really, really badly. On the other end of the spectrum, not nearly as evil comparably but still pretty bad, are people like this clown from Goldman. They lie to themselves and think up elaborate reasons to do the bad acts they were already hoping to do anyway. Some day, when historians finish peeling back all the different onion-layers of this financial disaster we’re living out right now, they’re going to find at the heart of it all this social Darwinist mantra wherein a very small group of overeducated twerps agreed to believe that stealing every last dime they could get their hands on was something other than what it looks and sounds like to the rest of us. That delusion was the first of the many luxuries they bought with all the money they stole, and see if it isn’t the last they agree to give up. What a bunch of assholes! http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/11/04...embraced-greed/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SloopJohn 0 Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 “The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest, we have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.” -Goldman Sachs International adviser Brian Griffiths http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...aODA&pos=11 Theres a simpler JC quote that takes care of him (and probably 95% of other Christians in the world today) - the one about rich men, eyes of needles, camels and heaven. this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alex Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Is that because he knew heaven didn't exist? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snakehips 0 Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Heaven's in the back seat of my cadillac. Let me take you there, yeah, yeah. As Errol Brown sang. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted November 16, 2009 Author Share Posted November 16, 2009 and again.... I'm doing 'God's work' - Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s chairman and chief executive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renton 21032 Posted November 16, 2009 Share Posted November 16, 2009 “The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest, we have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.” -Goldman Sachs International adviser Brian Griffiths http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...aODA&pos=11 I agree with the second half of that sentence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted November 16, 2009 Author Share Posted November 16, 2009 “The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest, we have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.” -Goldman Sachs International adviser Brian Griffiths http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...aODA&pos=11 I agree with the second half of that sentence. The question is, to what degree though? We do tolerate inequality, but the gap is widening. The average income for the 95th percentile has more than trebled from $60,000 to $200,000 since 1950 while the 20th percentile has only grown from just under $20,000 to just over $20,000... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_S...n_1947-2007.svg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renton 21032 Posted November 16, 2009 Share Posted November 16, 2009 “The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest, we have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.” -Goldman Sachs International adviser Brian Griffiths http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...aODA&pos=11 I agree with the second half of that sentence. The question is, to what degree though? We do tolerate inequality, but the gap is widening. The average income for the 95th percentile has more than trebled from $60,000 to $200,000 since 1950 while the 20th percentile has only grown from just under $20,000 to just over $20,000... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_S...n_1947-2007.svg Well that's the 64,000 dollar question isn't it? I'd like more equality, particularly at the top end. I believe European systems achieve this better than the USA, probably Japan is better too. The most disappointing legacy of New Labour is they've been unable to adress these imbalances although I do believe they at least tried. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJS 4355 Posted November 16, 2009 Share Posted November 16, 2009 Well that's the 64,000 dollar question isn't it? I'd like more equality, particularly at the top end. I believe European systems achieve this better than the USA, probably Japan is better too. The most disappointing legacy of New Labour is they've been unable to adress these imbalances although I do believe they at least tried. The problem is in my view is that the leverage that a bit of wealth gives people can be exagerrated - a a few more people being able to send their kids to private school means those kids get more of an advantage. A housing price bubble in the sout east is translated into more disposable income which can be used to fund buy to lets etc and of course its then passed on to kids. The expansion of university places was a good idea by Labour in trying to give more kids a chance. The problem is that the richer still have their advanatges which allow them to widen the gaps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted November 16, 2009 Author Share Posted November 16, 2009 “The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest, we have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.” -Goldman Sachs International adviser Brian Griffiths http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...aODA&pos=11 I agree with the second half of that sentence. The question is, to what degree though? We do tolerate inequality, but the gap is widening. The average income for the 95th percentile has more than trebled from $60,000 to $200,000 since 1950 while the 20th percentile has only grown from just under $20,000 to just over $20,000... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_S...n_1947-2007.svg Well that's the 64,000 dollar question isn't it? I'd like more equality, particularly at the top end. I believe European systems achieve this better than the USA, probably Japan is better too. The most disappointing legacy of New Labour is they've been unable to adress these imbalances although I do believe they at least tried. The bold bit is the main point. When a Goldman Sachs employee says "we have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all." he's using a broad market principle we can all agree with about wealth driving growth to defend the 60% increase in inequality and to advocate further increasing the income gap...driving millions into poverty. As you say, Labour did manage to level it off a tad, even lowering it for a period after the Tories created the greatest widening of the gap in the 80's, but it's back on the rise... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted November 19, 2009 Author Share Posted November 19, 2009 Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., apologized for the firm’s role in some of the activities leading to the financial crisis. “We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret,” Blankfein, 55, said at a conference in New York hosted by the Directorship magazine. “We apologize.” http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=aeV9jwqKKrEw No offer to forego the $Billion bonuses that will be at an all time high this year. No offer to repay some of the $21 billion long term debt still guaranteed by the Fed. No offer to put a freeze on foreclosures for the people they stole $50 Billion from. No directive issued to staff to avoid the type of activities that led to the collapse. No promise they won't do it all again. But he's sorry. So let's forgive and forget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alex Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 Tbh, what do you expect? It's the fault of the governments that bailed the banks out that they didn't put stricted conditions in place when they agreed to do that. We all know the banks are run by cunts who just care about the profits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted November 19, 2009 Author Share Posted November 19, 2009 (edited) Tbh, what do you expect? It's the fault of the governments that bailed the banks out that they didn't put stricted conditions in place when they agreed to do that. We all know the banks are run by cunts who just care about the profits. I don't expect anything else. When i'm being arse raped I prefer to make some noise though. Edited November 19, 2009 by Happy Face Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brummiemag1 0 Posted November 19, 2009 Share Posted November 19, 2009 “The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest, we have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.” -Goldman Sachs International adviser Brian Griffiths http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...aODA&pos=11 Religion and Capitalism - what an horrific mix of the greedy and the hypocritical Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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