The CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, received a bonus of $53.4 million dollars.  Apparently it's a record setting amount for a bonus.

I want to take a moment to think about that money.  What else could be done with it?  How deserving is Mr. Blankfein of this huge sum of cash?  I have to argue, not very.  I'm sure he works hard and all that, and his company earned a dozen boat loads of money, but still, the success of his company is determined more by market conditions than anything he did.  If they had a different guy at CEO, would they have performed much worse?  I doubt it.

Here's what that amount of money could represent instead.

* $53,000 annual salary for 1,000 people for one year.
* The cash purchase of $270,000 homes for 200 families.
* The down payments on $270,000 homes for 1,300 families.

I'm not saying it is Goldman Sachs's responsibility to be more charitable with their money, but I guarantee there are people working within that company who could use the money, who are underpaid, who are under appreciated, who are part of the backbone of what makes that company tick.

And in this age of such severe income inequality, and dwindling middle class, I think companies should do all they can to help rebuild the middle class instead of increasing the divide between rich and poor.