Listen to Goldman Sachs CEO

I am one of those nerdy types who tries to stay educated with what is happening in our economy. I try to follow the market to keep my business growing. Although there are times I probably should stay away from the news because it doesn't always keep me in the best frame of mind. This morning I turned on Bloomberg news and the CEO of Goldman Sachs was speaking to a group of investors. Following his speech, during the question and answer period he was interrupted by a protestor. Couldn't really hear what her complaint was because security moved her out before she said much. However, by the response by the CEO, I get she wasn't very happy about the bail out of the financial industry. the CEO (Blankfein) did acknowledge the anger expressed and said that he gets how angry tax payers are at his industry and while he felt that the protestors method of delivery was not appropriate he understood the anger. He did talk in favor of more regulation of the industry and that compensation packages for executives and others should be tied to performance of the company not just individual performance (what a concept) - ha.

I have been an accountant for too many years to admit to and I always believed that compensation was tied not only to my performance but to how well the company was doing. I guess this is new to the financial industry. Blankfein also was asked about how they have changed their meetings outside of their corporate headquarters. He said that a year ago were he to go to a meeting with a bunch of investors, he would have had the meeting in the morning and golf in the afternoon. Now they have the meeting in the morning and go back to work in the afternoon. It does feel like some of what main street is so angry about is getting through to at least some of these financial companies.

If the message is finally hitting the financial industry of more controls and less waste, maybe we are about to make a turn in this economy. But, I am not changing my business model yet.