As a bank of normal intellectual capacity, Goldman Sachs is sort of unfairly taking home the title of most profitable securities firm in the U.S., as result of having snuck into the Special Olympics of making money and smoking the competition. But whatevs, they did, and now they’ve set aside $16.9 billion to pay salaries, benefits and bonuses in the first nine months of 2007. Bloomberg points out that since Bear Stearns’s market cap is $14.7 billion, Goldman employees could buy Bear, and still have money left over for snacks. Yes, those catty Bloomberg bitches went there. But mudslinging aside, what would the Masters of the Universe do with the bank at 383 Madison, presuming they’re not too squeamish to enter a building so filthy that new employees are given information regarding how to treat everything from scabies to staph on their first days of work? Some ideas that have been floating around the GS bullpen include: (1) make Global Alpha Bear’s problem (at last a way to shuffle off that two-year embarrassment, and it’s not like BSC doesn’t have hedge fund expertise), (2) flood the building and create Wall Street’s largest corporate fish tank (added bonus: no need to pay severance to drown Bear employees), (3) make it one gigantic grow house (Cayne’s office already has a number of built-in heat lamps, so it wouldn’t be that difficult).

Goldman Pay Tops Bear Stearns's Slumping Market Value [Bloomberg]