So much to read this morning. But, Goldman Sachs is all over the place so let’s check in on one of our great financial manipulators of recent times. The big news–front page of the Financial Times, big story on the Wall Street Journal’s website and front page of the business section in The NY Times:

As public scrutiny of Wall Street pay intensifies, one bank has already decided what it will award in bonuses to its top seven executives this year: nothing.

Top executives at Goldman Sachs sent a request to the company’s directors on Sunday asking that they receive no bonus pay for their work in 2008, and the directors agreed, a company spokesman said.

The decision is likely to put heavy pressure on Goldman Sachs’s competitors, including Morgan Stanley, to take similar action as they decide on year-end bonus figures in the coming weeks.

   Now, before we start nominating these people for sainthood, keep in mind a couple of things:

1. These executives took home tens of millions of dollars in past years. In fact, in 2007:

In the last several years, Goldman Sachs has posted some of the biggest profits and paid out some of the biggest bonuses in Wall Street history. The company’s chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, received a salary and bonus package last year worth $68.5 million. Goldman Sachs paid its two co-presidents, Gary D. Cohn and Jon Winkelried, around $67.5 million each last year, more than most chief executives. All three will receive no bonuses this year.

2. Really, they should be in jail. Not taking home big bonuses is no substitute for the trillions of dollars in value that went poof in the past year, in large part because these thieves engaged in completely irresponsible behavior so they could report huge profits and haul off piles of cash.

   And maybe we will get our wish because speaking of illegal behavior, the Financial Times has this story:

A senior Republican senator is seeking an investigation into potential conflicts of interest among former Goldman Sachs executives serving at the US Treasury and whether any officials exceeded their authority by implementing a controversial tax change without the approval of Congress.

Chuck Grassley, the most senior Republican on the Senate finance committee, asked Eric Thorson, inspector-general of the Treasury, to investigate the "independence" of several Treasury officials who formerly worked at Goldman Sachs and serve as advisers to Treasury secretary Hank Paulson, the former chief executive of the Wall Street bank.

   What did they do?

   Mr Grassley is specifically concerned with a change in the tax code the Treasury initiated in late September that saved some institutions tens of billions of dollars and paved the way for Wells Fargo’s acquisition of Wachovia.

   Ah, yes, so to compound the mess they made, these Goldman Sachs former execs may have also helped drain the Treasury of billions of dollars–money that won’t be there for education, health care, fixing our roads and the other things that the other 99 percent of the people need.

   Here is hoping Grassley catches his prey.