Hard to go past this interview with Goldman Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein in The Times where he claims bankers are doing "God's work".

"We’re very important," Blankfein says. "We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It’s a virtuous cycle. We have a social purpose."

A social purpose? This is a spokesman for the banks that have destroyed so much wealth, that have put people out of work and have the left the global economy in a mess. And this is someone representing a bank that has assets of $1 trillion and profits of $3.4 billion in the last quarter. Average pay there is $700,000 and the top rainmakers pull in millions. In 2007, Blankfein was paid $68 million.

Blankfein defends the massive pay packets, saying they have been earned by people who helped generate the massive profits.

But of course, one of the reasons for Goldman Sachs' spectacular success has been its links with the US Government. The list includes: the treasury secretary under Bill Clinton (Robert Rubin); the treasury secretary under George Bush (Hank Paulson); the current president and former chairman of the New York Federal Reserve (William Dudley and Stephen Friedman); the chief of staff to the treasury secretary Timothy Geithner (Mark Patterson); the chief of staff under President Bush (Joshua Bolten); the economic adviser to the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton (Robert Hormats); the chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Gary Gensler); the under-secretary of state for economic, business, and agricultural affairs under President Bush (Reuben Jeffery); the past and current heads of the New York Stock Exchange (John Thain and Duncan Niederauer); the chief operating officer of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division (Adam Storch).

No wonder they call it Government Sachs. Blankfein likes to describe himself as a "blue collar guy". But when you read his rantings here, he comes across as nothing more than the poster child for the corporate greed that has left the global economy in a mess, that has stopped banks lending money and put so many people out of work.