This morning, Goldman Sachs (GS) and Bernstein both had good things to say about the company, noting that investors may have underestimated its potential for growth. “Discussions with advertising agencies, including a dinner we hosted with senior agency executives, point to rising spending on Google since June, led by travel, clothing and home improvement advertisers,” Goldman said in a research note issued this morning.

Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay was similarly bullish. “We expect Google’s results to show some signs of cyclical improvement in Q3, as easier comparisons and more favorable currencies should benefit topline trends,” he wrote in a research note. “Paid search is an early cycle advertising format given the immediacy of keyword auctions, and Google has maintained its dominant position within the category.”

Also bolstering Google (GOOG) shares today are the recent comments of company CEO Eric Schmidt, who told journalists at a roundtable discussion last week that the economy is starting to turn around. “The worst is behind us and we clearly see aspects of recovery, and what is notable is we’re seeing aspects of recovery not just in the United States but also in Europe,” Schmidt said. “We are increasing our hiring rate and our investment rate in anticipation of a recovery.”

“Yahoo doesn’t have the magic solution,” Liddell said. “No one should think it will transform the industry….Putting the two organizations together would be a useful step, but it won’t be a panacea….We have to have a plan that excludes Yahoo, we can’t be dependent on that. Even though we’ve suggested it would be great to get together, we don’t work on the basis that’s going to happen. If it does that’s great, but if it doesn’t, that’s fine too.”

Liddell’s remarks came a day after soon-to-be-former Yahoo CFO Blake Jorgensen said the company had not ruled out the idea of a search deal with Microsoft (MSFT).

Goldman Sachs published its “Americas: 2009 Software Outlook” report today and it’s as dismal and ugly a forecast as you’d expect, given the current economic climate.

“The worst of the IT-spending slowdown likely remains in front of us, as we start the clock on slashed 2009 budgets,” Goldman said in the report. “We forecast 0 percent revenue growth for our group, below consensus at 5 percent, and 1 percent earnings growth, below Street at 2 percent.”

Beyond that, the firm forsees an eight percent decline in developed economy tech capital investment, with the likes of Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), SAP (SAP), Symantec (SYMC), CA (CA)–the so called Big 5–treading water until the economy recovers. Said Goldman, “We expect the Big 5 software companies…to benefit from more defensive revenue streams due to critical nature of functions, ’stickier’ maintenance, stronger negotiating leverage, and a likely spending consolidation to larger vendors. Hence, we assume 0 percent growth for this group in 2009.”

Ugly. Could have been worse, though.

A disheartening prediction. And to make matters worse, Bailey speculates that Apple (AAPL) won’t unveil any new product categories at MacWorld come January, and because of that won’t see the sort of near-term pop it typically experiences after the introduction of a compelling new product. Said Bailey, “[The] nearer-term outlook is less positive, as it now looks unlikely that Apple will launch a new product category at MacWorld in early January, taking away a potential catalyst for the shares and causing Apple to try to generate demand in a tough environment without the benefit of a new offering in the first part of 2009.”

Apple shares closed at $94.75, down 3.58 percent for the day on the news.

What’s larger than the gross domestic product of Sri Lanka, Lebanon or Bulgaria and, when divided by 186,000, more than four times higher than the median U.S. household income in 2006?

The $39 billion in bonuses Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs (GS), Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley (MS) doled out in 2007.

Congratulations on a job well done, folks. You’ve really gone above and beyond the call of duty here.

“To many people, it will be shocking and questionable,” Jeanne Branthover, managing director of Boyden Global Executive Search, told Bloomberg last year. “People in New York in the world of investment banking will understand it. It’s critical that pay is still there or you’re going to lose really good people.”

Of course. God forbid Wall Street’s five largest banks lose any really good people. Who’d be left to manage the government’s $700 billion rescue plan for the financial markets?

Something to think about during this period of “rapid and profound change” on Wall Street.

From the Fed’s announcement:

To provide increased liquidity support to these firms as they transition to managing their funding within a bank holding company structure, the Federal Reserve Board authorized the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to extend credit to the U.S. broker-dealer subsidiaries of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley against all types of collateral that may be pledged at the Federal Reserve’s primary credit facility for depository institutions or at the existing Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF); the Federal Reserve has also made these collateral arrangements available to the broker-dealer subsidiary of Merrill Lynch.”

Extraordinary.

The transformation of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley into traditional bank holding companies effectively marks the end of the investment banking industry as we’ve know it. It puts the two firms squarely under the oversight of national bank regulators. And while this will subject them to new capital requirements and additional supervision, it also will allow them to take commercial deposits. And, of course, it will grant them access to the Fed’s emergency lending facilities. Which must be a wonderful thing to have in this time of “rapid and profound change” on Wall Street, as Morgan Stanley likes to describe it.

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Based on Nintendo’s latest earnings forecast, the Financial Times estimates each company employee will produce more than $1.6 million in profit this year. Meanwhile, the average Goldman (GS) employee is on track to generate roughly $1.24 million, the average Google (GOOG) employee upwards of $626,000.

Sadly for Nintendo’s bullet train-efficient workforce, that astonishing profit-per-employee metric doesn’t translate into profit-for-employee salaries. While the average Goldman worker banked $660,000 in compensation in 2007, the average Nintendo worker pocketed just $90,900. “We are not experiencing success,” said one Nintendo prole, “just increased overtime.”