Goldman Sachs excels at many things – among them, waging a public relations campaign. Chief executive Lloyd Blankfein's speech to a Frankfurt banking conference yesterday lobbed the odd pot-shot at his German hosts, notably on fair value accounting which Goldman has always robustly defended. Beyond that, his gentle questioning about the usefulness of some financial products and unjustifiable pay might grab headlines, but add very little. Compare, for example, Financial Services Authority chairman Lord Turner's criticism of the UK's “swollen” financial services industry against Mr Blankfein's assertion that banking's ruddy health is crucial for a “vibrant, dynamic” economy.

The growing chorus that banks should reassess their social and economic usefulness is downright peculiar. Banks, like all businesses, have always been run on the basis of adding to the bottom lines of the company, its shareholders and employees. That won't change. More interesting is Goldman's tacit admission that egregious boomtime complexity was used to dress up, market and price its services to clients where simpler solutions would have sufficed. Many industries are prone to this – think lawyers and plumbers. But whatever highfalutin' terms or techniques are used, the plumber and his boss both understand pipes and the messy risks in fixing them. Bank chiefs evidently did not.

Hence Mr Blankfein's stress on effective risk management – without which compensation reform or additional capital becomes moot. On the former, Goldman remains entirely unapologetic about pay, laying out sensible, uncontroversial principles while justifying payouts on the basis of exceptional performance. On the latter, it remains silent, with the word “leverage” notable by its absence in Mr Blankfein's lament. True, risk will remain the sine qua non of banking, whatever the regulators do. Platitudes aside, Mr Blankfein – like any good banker – was just talking his book.