Vampire Squids

In the wake of the recent financial crisis, the role of the financial system in the economy has been under debate, with some arguing that it needs a complete overhaul, while others making the case that it’s mostly doing fine as it is right now. In the latter camp was Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs who said that financial institutions were “doing God’s work”. He received a fair amount of criticism for that statement, but I think they missed the point. The real question is – which god?

Perhaps Matt Taibbi gave us a hint with his famous description of Goldman Sachs as a “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money”

Here’s what an actual vampire squid looks like. But while a vampire squid may sound scary, it’s far too natural of a creature for us at Economics of the Undead. So I’d like to suggest that Blankfein may have had a different cephalopod in mind.