Jim Hightower

Bankers at Goldman Sachs have a problem and I'm sure you can empathize. Maybe you can even help them!

Here's the problem: They're making too much money. Altogether now: Awwww.

The Wall Street colossus has set aside nearly $17 billion to pay end-of-year bonuses to its bankers, with the biggest chunk going to top executives and the casino dealers in Goldman's trading department, where exotic, high-risk betting games are played.

Yes, these are the same financial whizzes whose exotic investments turned toxic last year, crashing America's real economy and hurting millions of regular folks who weren't in on the game. Indeed Goldman remains in the game today only because it was bailed out with our tax money – Goldman got $22.9 billion in cash from us, plus many billions more in cheap federal loans and government guarantees. With this public support, the bankers can now lavish bonuses on themselves.

So, you see, their problem is one of public perception: they are widely viewed as immoral, greedy banksters. This perception hurts their feelings, so to buff their image the ruling poobahs at Goldman have announced that the bank will magnanimously donate $200 million to the bank's own charitable foundation, hoping that you and I will applaud this generosity and show them some love.

Generosity? Two hundred million is less than two percent of the bonus money they're grabbing! They think that's going to win us over?

Let's help them out. What do you think these clueless narcissists could do to earn any real appreciation from the American people? Send your ideas to info@jimhightower.com, and we'll forward them to Goldman's CEO. We'll also select the three best ideas, with the winners getting a free one-year subscription to the Hightower Lowdown monthly newsletter.