With the financial industry on the receiving end of a massive bailout by the government, one would assume Wall Street wouldn’t be paying out bonuses this year. Well think again.
While bonuses are expected to be down between 40% and 70%, the financial industry’s foot soldiers are expected to get their bonuses, which in some cases make up 80% of their yearly compensation.
“Even if you have tough times you’ve got a lot of people that contribute a lot,” said Allan Johnson, managing director of Johnson Associates, a New York-based compensation consulting firm. The Wall Street companies don’t want to lose or devastate the morale at the companies, he said.
Yo, buddy: FUCK YOU. I don’t give a good God-damn about your fucking morale. What the fuck do you think MY morale is like, after bailing your sorry asses out with my hard-earned money?
News reports have surfaced that Goldman Sachs (GS: 65.18, -9.50, -12.72%) and Morgan Stanley (MS: 12.34, -1.74, -12.35%) are among the Wall Street companies that have set aside billions for bonuses. Officials at Goldman Sachs weren’t immediately available to comment. A spokesman at Morgan Stanley said the company hasn’t made a final decision on bonuses yet.
Paying bonuses this year is likely to result in a lot of backlash from the average American.
Gee! Do ya THINK?
After all, even with bonuses down dramatically, they are still higher than the average American, who is losing his or her home, makes. Not to mention the government bailout of financial firms, which seems to change daily, is coming from taxpayer dollars. Concerns abound—rightly or wrongly–that some of the $700 billion bailout could go to pay bonuses this year.
Last month, when the bailout was first being introduced, many American were appalled that they in essence would be bailing out the fat cats on Wall Street. And while bonuses will go to high level executives it will also go to top performers that have continued to do their jobs. That distinction, however, is sure to fall on deaf ears.
“The average person does not care,” said Johnson. “These people make ten times as much as I do and I’m losing my house,” he said of what many Americans will think.
You are completely correct (except that I’m not losing my house — either one of them). But if I have to tighten my belt, Wall Streeters can learn to tighten theirs, too. Are you telling me that these people weren’t smart enough to put money away for a rainy day? Jesus Christ!
Let’s see…if they make 10 times what I do, and 80% of their salary is bonuses…that means they still make TWICE WHAT I DO for a base.
But I’m not stupid enough to live five times beyond my means, either.
Still despite the backlash Wall Street companies can ill afford to halt bonuses.
Bullshit.
“Wall Street is likely to pay bonuses to people unless there’s legislation that prevents them because nobody wants to be the one that doesn’t pay when others do,” said John Challenger chief executive of Challenger Gray & Christmas, the Chicago employment consulting company. “People have been expecting the bonus. If they yank that out from under people they (the Wall Street companies) lose a competitive advantage.”
Fuck ’em. Times are tough. Suck up your disappointment.
Challenger pointed to the concerted effort by Wall Street banks to sell equity to the government as an example of why all the investment banks will pay bonuses this year. While the government forced the banks to participate in the program, the argument went that the companies that sold equity would have a black eye if all of the other Wall Street banks didn’t follow suit. That could happen with bonuses as well, said Challenger.
“If some banks give bonuses and others don’t the talent will flow to the good bank,” he said.
Why does this require legislation? Why don’t all the banks just agree to say “no bonuses this year, and no bonuses as long as we’re taking bailout money”?
And hell’s bells, what talent? Who says the good banks want the people from the bad banks, anyway?
But could the government step in a legislate away bonuses? According to compensation experts it’s not out of the question—given backlash is expected to be fierce. Indeed New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sent a letter in late October to Citigroup (C: 9.61, -1.19, -11.01%), Bank of America (BAC: 17.11, -1.58, -8.45%), Bank of New York Mellon (BK: 29.24, -0.40, -1.34%), Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase (JPM: 34.55, -1.80, -4.95%), Merrill Lynch (MER: 13.45, -1.45, -9.73%), Morgan Stanley, State Street (STT: 39.64, -2.53, -5.99%) and Wells Fargo (WFC: 27.67, -1.16, -4.02%) requesting detailed accounting of expected payments to top management during the upcoming bonus season.
The government has done “stupider things,” said Johnson of Johnson Associates.
Yeah. Like listen to people like you.
“The politicians have put themselves in a terrible spot because they have positioned this as a giveaway.” He cautioned that a move to do away with bonuses this year would basically “blow up” the financial firms.
Again, bullshit.
“They don’t want to spend all that money (on the bailout) to blow up the industry at the end,” he said.
It won’t blow up the industry. The industry needs to read that bit in the Bible about seven fat years and seven lean years. If it didn’t provide for the seven lean years, that’s its own damn fault.
The biggest problem is that all too many Americans have disregarded common sense and morality in the name of Moral Relativism and Political Correctness. A great deal of that is found in the Bible, but we aren’t even teaching traditional secular morality like Aesop’s Fables any more.
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Yes, I like the post a lot.
The talk of bonuses reminded my of a conversation a cousin who went to Columbia told me about. She was talking to a student from an upper middle class family, and couldn’t understand why she didn’t get financial aid. After all, her dad’s bonus was going to be only $50,000, and he “had to” buy her younger sister a new car for her 16th birthday.
Miss Clueless didn’t realize she was talking to someone whose father only made $50,000 per year.