MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, Blind Idiot Heaven, Sunday (NNN) — Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, says that “banks are doing God’s work,” comparable to Hurricane Katrina, the eruption of Krakatoa and the Tunguska event of 1908.

“There is a balance to all things,” said Mr Blankfein. “God created Heaven, and He also created the banking sector.”

Mr Blankfein points out that there are always business opportunities, even in the hard times. “The blood, the frogs, the lice, the flies, the livestock diseases, the boils, the hail and — of course — the locusts came about after the deregulation we lobbied for. But market efficiency has been increased, which is good for capitalism and therefore good for everyone. The darkness is strictly temporary for the duration of the mortgage on your firstborns unto the seventh generation.”

Goldman Sachs is set to pay a record £12 billion in salaries and bonuses this year. “It rewards our good work in creating investments so complex that not even we understand them. No blame, no shame! Past Avarice and through Wrath and Sloth, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and Treason! The suffering will wash away your sins! Praise the Lord!”

Recovery is expected through 2010. “The financial system led us into the crisis and it will lead us out. We have opened the Seventh Collateralised Debt Obligation of the Covenant and a mere one-third of the globe has collapsed, far less than our forecasts. What could possibly go wrong now? The way out is the way through! So if you could spare just a few billion dollars’ spare change, sir, for a latte and a burger, that would help us greatly, and God bless you sir, God bless you.”