If there’s one profession that has probably dropped below advertisers on the respect level in the past few years, it would be investment bankers. Not only did they take their fair share of blame for the ongoing economic catastrophe, but now they are sinking to new lows in the court of public opinion thanks to the billions in bonuses that are about to be paid out. In fact, a recent WSJ study found that total compensation for bankers will be up 18% in 2009 to $145 billion—that’s amid a year that took a Fed rescue plan! One company in particular, Goldman Sachs, is facing a storm of anger as it prepares to pay out roughly $10 billion in bonuses to its bankers. That doesn’t seem right to the millions of Americans who are still struggling to pay the bills (and who didn’t have a hand in destroying the markets), and neither does Goldman’s halfhearted attempts to buy them off with charitable giving.

Let’s definitely give the brainiacs at Goldman Sachs credit for trying to defuse a public attack by creating new forms of charitable giving. In November the company set up a $500 million fund to make loans to small businesses. The fund is being overseen by Warren Buffett, who is a trusted leader but has a conflict of interest as a large Goldman shareholder. Now the company is considering a plan to require its executives and other top managers to give a percentage of their bonuses to charities. This number could also reach into the hundreds of millions.

While any money that goes away from new yachts for rich bankers and instead to small businesses and worthy charities is great, I believe Goldman Sachs will gain little from its sudden interest in generosity. The key problem is that the American people are not idiots. They can see for themselves that the giving is a drop in the multi-billion-dollar bucket. They know that the company is dreadfully fearful of government legislation that could pare back its gains—permanently. President Obama is considering a $90 billion “financial responsibility tax.” If you doubt that Congress will ever pass something like this, just ask the executives at AIG how a government pay cap feels.

On the other hand, if Goldman or some other large financial services brand had made giving part of their culture for years, there might be an opportunity to secure big bonuses and grow market share. In fact, Goldman Sachs actually has some significant giving in its company history, as its early partners backed Albert Einstein and helped establish the NAACP. Alas, those days are far away, and any company that has to force its partners to give away a percentage of outsized gains has lost any true charitable culture that ever existed.