Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein says he's doing "God's work." He probably is, considering God's dark sense of humor.

Don't rely on second-hand reports of this revelation about Blankfein's true calling as leader of the bank that shagged us. See the Sunday Times (U.K.) profile of Blankfein, "I'm doing 'God's work.' Meet Mr. Goldman Sachs," by John Arlidge. A terrific piece. Nothing much new, but it might give you some insight about exactly why you're either so jealous of or pissed off at schnooks like Blankfein.

Here's the paragraph in question:

My personal favorite graf from Arlidge's breezy description of life inside Goldman's HQ:

Barack Obama's administration has so far been witless for the prosecution of the goniff investment bankers who crashed Wall Street and has shown no signs of clawing back the wealth that dramatically shifted from households to private equity, hedge funds, foreign bank accounts, and the bailed-out banks themselves.

Read about Obama's clawless — not clueless but inherently clawless — crew in James Lieber's "We've Bailed out the Banks. When Do We Go After the Crooks Behind our Financial Collapse?," the Voice's cover story this week. Long piece, but a quick read.

You might remember Lieber's "What Cooked the World's Economy?" from earlier this year, in which he laid out a groundbreaking, readable analysis of the devilish details.

Obama hasn't exactly surrounded himself with regulators, as Lieber points out.

An argument could be made that the Bush administration's prosecutors were more aggressive against the Wall Street goniffs last year than the current crew. No shit.

Great chart from the Awl on the downward (to say the least) trend of major newspapers since 1990. Except for the Wall Street Journal.

The value of the chart? Daily papers have been plummeting ever more rapidly for two decades, not just in recent times and before bloggers took over.

No wonder the Chicago Sun-Times was just purchased for a measly $5 million in cash from bankruptcy court.

All the squawking in the world and all the pretty little anchorwomen trying to add spice to shouters and wankers like Jim Cramer and Larry Kudlow aren't helping CNBC. The business network's audience is dropping faster than last year's stock market. Its October audience is down 50 percent compared with last October, according to Nielsen.

Is it time for another Rick Santelli rant? (Click above for a rerun.) Kiss-ass "biographies" of businesses and people with "passion" (like Sam Walton) aren't working.

Of course, just about every channel is down from last October's panic that drove everyone to subject themselves to cable 24/7 no matter how bad it was for their brains. (See the ratings roundup here.)

Unsurprising bad news for Barack Obama's futile and childish war against Fox News: The channel is still No. 1 by a way huge amount.

Few things are more boring than watching journalists talk about journalism, but yesterday's George Stephanopolous roundtable on Barack Obama's publicly declared war with Fox News shows how the nation's most charismatic previous president handled the press without being heavy-handed or thin-skinned about it.

The staff of former Clinton press secretary Stephanopolous dredged up a clip of John F. Kennedy from May 1962. Asked at a press conference how he thought the press was treating his administration and "the issues of the day," the president who used to sleep Marilyn Monroe said (transcript):

Not that JFK let all propagandists off so lightly. During that same press conference, JFK blistered corporate crookedness regarding a tax bill:

They're delirious over at Fox News about landing the top spot on the White House enemies list. And I don't blame them.

There's no higher honor for a journalist than to land on a government's enemies list — particularly when the pol throws down the gantlet publicly. And it's something that you can enjoy when you know the government's not going to actually murder you, as it does in so many countries. (See the Committee to Protect Journalists.)

Sure, I'd like to strangle Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity — who wouldn't? But that would be wrong — mostly because I'd be caught. For a government, that would be wrong on all counts.

When paranoid Richard Nixon and his aides were compiling the most famous White House Enemies List, Barack Obama was just a child of 10. That might be why Obama's acting like a child now.

Take a look at "Is Fox Part of a Larger White House Enemies List?" That's the nutwork's own celebration from Wednesday's "On the Record" (transcript) in which bore correspondent Greta Van Susteren starts it by saying, "There is breaking news in the White House war on Fox News ..."

As usual, Fox News's talking heads are full of shit, but the broadcast wasn't. Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander warned Obama not to compile what amounts to an official enemies list, and Fox News gave him a big bear hug. But Alexander was being more than just another partisan Republican when he sternly lectured Obama. Alexander speaks from experience:

Give Alexander some props for publicly acknowledging that he was an operative for the most paranoid and petulant president in U.S. history.

Obama's bone-headed move just gives an excuse to his political opponents, who should have their arms twisted on health-care and financial-industry reform, to waste their time responding to him and getting face time while doing it.

Both sides control vast media. The president's more lovable, but Fox News is louder and on the air 24/7, so my money's on Fox. At the very least, this will just harden Fox's true believers and give them more fodder.

His communications chief, Anita Dunn, tells the NYT's Brian Stelter:

A cynical view of the American public from the Obama team, which must think that it nees to counter Fox directly and by name because the right-wing channel is duping many average Americans with its steady anti-president rants. And the Obama team is absolutely right about that.

Is the tide turning for the public option? (Salon)

"As healthcare reform moves to backroom talks, supporters say its chances may be improving."

U.S. Losing Ground on Preventable Deaths: Despite High Medical Spending, Results Trail Other Wealthy Countries (WashPost)

Pay Czar Targets Salary Cuts (WSJ)

Ken Feinberg might actually be planning a crackdown. Instead of cash, execs would have to take stock that they couldn't fuck with for several years. "Most intrusive [move] yet into corporate compensation."

Obama Weighs Spending to Stem Job Cuts Without Second Stimulus (Bloomberg)

Or at least without something that carries the label "stimulus." More gullible NYT story here.

One-Third of Wall Street Workers Expect Bigger Bonus This Year (Bloomberg)

U.S. Seeks to Restrict Gift Giving to Bloggers (WSJ)

Cracking down on the shilling of products "for fun and profit." Bloggers supposedly have to reveal freebies or money they get for writing product reviews. Also cracking down on celebrity endorsements.

Recession Spells End for Many Family Businesses (WSJ)

The ones that Wal-Mart and fast-food chains hadn't already killed.

Google to blight smartphones with big ads (Register U.K.)

Prepaid, but Not Prepared for Debit Card Fees (NYT)

Yet another legal scam foisted upon a recession-plagued public.

Comedian pitches $100k for Twitter account: Drew Carey eyes @drew for charity (Register U.K.)

If you're willing to pay $100,000 to outbid Drew Carey, then you have too much money. Cancer becomes a Twitter game.

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Jobs Cuts Unexpectedly Accelerate (WSJ)

Banks With 20% Unpaid Loans at 18-Year High Amid Recovery Doubt (Bloomberg)

Michael Moore Whiffs: Capitalism: A Love Story is a meandering disappointment. (Big Money, James Scurlock)

Fear Strikes Back (Seeking Alpha, David Fry)

All the charts you ever need to try to figure out why the market's "green shoots turned to mold." Go back to Roberto Baggio's September 24 post, "Ten Reasons for an Imminent Stock Market Crash."

Vets Loving Socialized Medicine Show Government Offers Savings (Bloomberg)

The Ingenious Beast: How Tina Brown's e-book plan could make everyone money. (Big Money, Marion Maneker)

Her plan to launch original digital books on her site is "exactly what digital publishing needs to fuel its growth: a product ideally suited for a new technology."

In NBC Universal Bid, Comcast Seeks an Empire (NYT)

Too bad for GE's Jeff Immelt that David Letterman doesn't work for NBC. Letterman's ratings coup last night would have boosted NBC's value for this impending deal.

Washington Post, Bloomberg Create a Joint News Venture (WSJ)

Really smart for both big media orgs. Of all the nation's newspapers, you can be most sure that the WashPost will survive any technological change and loss of print-ad revenue. Mayor Mike Bloomberg, for his part, will greatly expand his electronic news base to the common folk.

Insurance Executive Pay Curbed in Health Bill (WSJ)

Senate Democrats are "responding to charges that expanding health insurance coverage would enrich insurance companies." We'll believe this pay curb when we see the final version of the bill that actually winds up being passed.

Jobs-Report Jitters Knock Futures (WSJ)

IMF Chief Is Target of Shoe Thrown by Turkish Student (WSJ)

Another soulless terrorist attacks a world leader.

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David Letterman made the right business decision last night, although not necessarily the correct one, when the $30-million-a-year TV host exposed an alleged extortion attempt in front of astonished and immediately sympathetic viewers on his TV show. A person tried to blackmail Letterman — he says — because he screwed female staffers.

Several good screwings deserved another, the alleged extortionist (who supposedly threatened to write a screenplay) must have thought, if the story's true.

Letterman didn't do what could have been the correct thing: Pay the money. The guy does, after all, make at least that $30 million a year — even more than the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez, and Letterman's much more lovable.

On the other hand, once you pay a blackmailer, the extortion may never stop. Just ask Michael Jackson — if you pry him off little boys wherever he is now.

Instead, Letterman did the smart thing. The only possibly bad decision Letterman made was to have sex with staffers, any one of whom could have written a tell-all, unless he arranged a nondisclosure agreement, which he probably didn't. That's what you get when you foul your own nest instead of going elsewhere for your poontang.

In a business sense, Letterman handled it brilliantly. Fucking employees (unless they're fellow execs) is standard business practice, whether or not sex is involved. But this was the smartest bailout in at least the past year, and Letterman did it himself, with no boost from taxpayers. He used the alleged extortion attempt as a shtick on his show last night. He wound up admitting that he fucked staffers. He garnered really high ratings during a sweep period, making his bosses deliriously happy because their franchise is also intact. He told his audience: "I want to reiterate how terrifying this moment was . . . was I going to get a tap on the shoulder? I am motivated by nothing but guilt." And he earned admiring headlines, like "Letterman creates brilliant hour of TV from woes."

Beautiful. Bill Clinton should have done the same thing, instead of lying about having sex with "that woman."