Sources inside Goldman Sachs worry about Blankfein making his rent this month

NEW YORK, N.Y. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein revealed Wednesday that he too is feeling the pinch of the weak economy as his company announced a 47-percent plummet in earnings, the most severe drop since 2008. As a result, the financial group decreased Blankfein's annual bonus, seemingly in tandem, by nearly 44 percent. Blankfein, who was raised in a Bronx housing project, said the dramatic reduction in pay evoked memories of his humble origins. After being awarded a paltry $7 million -- down from $12.6 million the previous year -- Blankfein put on a brave face and told reporters: "Sure, it's hard. I'm like so many Americans who've had their compensation shredded to a questionable living wage. And, you know, it's easy to complain -- to say, 'why they'd even bother,' or to think of the stipend as a hollow gesture in the face of horrendous morale. But then I take a look around and consider myself lucky that I'm even employed. The bank already fired 2,400 people. Unlike Mitt Romney, they didn't seem to enjoy it. I'm grateful, actually."

Blankfein's first bonus, back in 2006, was $27 million, the exact amount of his downtown apartment.

"We feel just terrible about this," a Goldman Sachs Group board member said. "His entire first year's pay went to rent. And since that time, it's continued to drop because of economic hardships in the industry. I really don't know how he's affording to put food on the table."

"I've seen Lloyd sitting in the lunch room slurping Cup of Soup. It's a vile indictment of greed in this country," one co-worker bitterly told reporters. "For a Harvard educated attorney in control of one of America's most powerful banks, it sickens me to think he still can't afford a house -- that he has to live in an apartment. This country is in bad shape."

Blankfein and other executives who faced the frightening news of their compensation reductions today were told that the company would be raising their base salaries from $600,000 to $2 million a year.

"This guy took home almost $70 million his second year as an employee," a company spokesperson added. "Now he'll be lucky to see $9 million -- excluding stock options and individual shares. It's tough, but we're doing what we can. Honestly, we worry that we'll come to the offices one Monday morning and find Lloyd squatting in the park with the rest of the Occupy Wall Street protesters -- and that it will be our fault."

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