Inquiring minds note a stunning drop in the price for doing God's Work. Last year Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein received a salary of a $600,000 as well as a stock bonus worth $12.6 million.

This year the base salary for doing God's work rose to $2 million, however, bonuses fell to a shockingly-low $7 million. The net effect is a decline from $13.2 million to $9 million.

That is a 30% reduction in the overall cost of doing God's work. Said Blankfein "Now I know how those in Greece feel".

For additional details, please see Goldman’s Blankfein Awarded $7 Million in Stock for ’11. Here is one key fact from the article.

The filings don’t include how much any of the executives have been awarded in cash bonuses. Blankfein received a $5.4 million cash bonus for 2010, his first since getting about $27 million in cash bonuses for each of 2007 and 2006.

Mercy!

How can the man survive a cut like that?

Inquiring minds just may be interested in the performance that merited $9 million (plus undisclosed cash compensation, if any).

GS 2011 Stock Market Performance

Said Blankfein when questioned about plunge in share price "This just goes to show you how difficult it is to do God's work. I earned every penny."

Mish note: the quotes of course are fictional, the rest of the story unfortunately is not.