Wall Street Hypocrisy Invokes Jesus to Justify Bonuses: Opinion

I couldn't believe it when I read on Bloomberg today that Brian Griffiths, an international adviser at Goldman Sachs (GS), uttered these words in a British church last month:

"The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest," Goldman's Griffiths said Oct. 20, his voice echoing around the gold-mosaic walls of St. Paul's Cathedral, whose 365-feet-high dome towers over the City, London's financial district. "We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all."

In the "What Would Jesus Do" camp, this is sheer hypocrisy.

Would Jesus tolerate front-running hedge-fund clients' orders? Would Jesus tolerate trading against customers from one's proprietary trading desk? Would Jesus tolerate getting a first look at order flow and information flow from a major stock exchange now controlled by a single firm's former employees? Would Jesus tolerate trading inside tips from a higher power? (All right, he might tolerate that last one.)

Griffiths' comments preceded those of Barclay's CEO John Varley, who, quoted in the same Bloomberg article, told a crowd at the 283-year-old St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in London that "rewarding high-performing bankers with more pay doesn't conflict with Christian values."

I don't disagree with Varley, but Mr. Griffiths ... please!!!

Don't invoke Jesus to justify record payouts to traders who have a competitive edge that no one else has.