Hasn’t everyone else also seen a pay raise like this? By gosh, he’s such a leader and deserves every penny for managing to drive earnings down even after free money handed out by the taxpayers who are funding the bank recovery. Who says capitalism is dead in America? Good work, when you can get it.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) awarded Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein $19 million in compensation for 2010, almost double the prior year, and granted him the first cash bonus in three years.

The total includes $5.4 million in cash, $12.6 million in restricted stock, a $600,000 salary and about $464,000 in other benefits, the New York-based firm’s proxy statement showed. Blankfein’s $9.8 million pay for 2009 included $9 million in restricted stock plus salary and other compensation.

Goldman Sachs, the fifth-biggest U.S. bank by assets, boosted Blankfein’s compensation for a year in which earnings dropped 38 percent and the stock price was little changed. The amount falls in the middle ground between 2008, when Blankfein, 56, and six other senior officers got no bonuses, and the record-setting $67.9 million award he received for 2007.