Matt Taibbi: Forbes Calls Goldman CEO Holier Than Mother Teresa [View all]

(Rolling Stone) I got a lot of letters from folks this week about an online column for Forbes written by a self-proclaimed Ayn Rand devotee named Harry Binswanger (if that's a nom de plume, it's not bad, although I might have gone for "Harry Kingbanger" or "Harry Wandwanker&quot . The piece had the entertainingly provocative title, "Give Back? Yes, It's Time for the 99% to Give Back to the 1%" and contained a number of innovatively slavish proposals to aid the beleaguered and misunderstood rich, including a not-kidding-at-all plan to exempt anyone who makes over a million dollars from income taxes.

This article is so ridiculous that normally it would be beneath commentary, but there's a passage in there I just couldn't let go:

Imagine the effect on our culture, particularly on the young, if the kind of fame and adulation bathing Lady Gaga attached to the more notable achievements of say, Warren Buffett. Or if the moral praise showered on Mother Teresa went to someone like Lloyd Blankfein, who, in guiding Goldman Sachs toward billions in profits, has done infinitely more for mankind. (Since profit is the market value of the product minus the market value of factors used, profit represents the value created.)

Instead, we live in a culture where Goldman Sachs is smeared as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity. . ."

What a world we live in, where Mother Teresa wins more moral praise than Lloyd Blankfein! Who can bear living in a society where such a thing is possible? Quel horreur!

It reads like an Onion piece, just hilarious stuff. I mean, Jesus, even Lloyd Blankfein himself didn't go so far as to take the "God's work" thing 100% seriously, and here's this jackass saying, without irony, that the Goldman CEO literally out-God-slaps Mother Teresa. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/forbes-calls-goldman-ceo-holier-than-mother-teresa-20130920#ixzz2fWmw9uea