NEW YORK (Fortune) -- It's probably cold comfort, but Goldman Sachs couldn't have done it without your help.
The New York-based investment firm turned another eye-popping profit Thursday, earning $3.2 billion in the third quarter, as revenue from trading rose fourfold from a year ago.
As Wall Street firms typically do, Goldman set almost half that sum aside to compensate its workers. Through the first nine months of 2009, the firm socked away $16.7 billion, enough to pay the average Goldmanite $526,814.
The bonus pool is on pace to hit $21 billion for 2009, which would match the record bonus payout of 2007.
Goldman said it won't decide the size of the bonus pool till year-end. In any case, the payments will be substantial -- and will come just one year after huge sums of taxpayer dollars were funneled to financial institutions.
Critics charge that the lion's share of Goldman's profits comes from making big bets using cheap dollars printed by the Federal Reserve. Plus, given the crisis that followed the failure of Lehman Brothers, there's a sense that government officials won't let big firms go bust. That in effect gives too-big-to-fail firms a license to bet the house. - CNN Story
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