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Bank Bonuses Up 40 Percent
Bonuses are back on Wall Street and now the numbers are out to prove it: projections from a compensation consulting firm in New York predict that incentive pay will increase 40 percent this year at investment banks. Other financial firms, like hedge funds, are expected to see declines of 15 percent to 30 percent. Wall Street must worry about political pressure as well as perception that their year-end bounties come at the expense of tax-payers. "Governments are taking this very seriously," said one recruiting firm head. Still, The Wall Street Journal reports, some bankers are complaining about two straight years of disappointing compensation.
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Fentro
I'm about ready to get some guns and star blasting at these damn crooks. Who's with me??
slmpirate
I dont think your going to find anyone that would argue your position on this one Fentro.
I'm sure there are plenty of folks (including me) who have given it a passing thought.
hockeydog
Fentro, guns won't cut it.
We need to hang em high
In the public square.
Watch em swing
While the blue-bottles
Swarm
TWBBug
Of course they are up...they have Obama, they finance him. The folks at the Fed got us here and they have offices in the government with close ties to Goldman-Sachs. Obama is their BOY.
JTR55408
It seems fairly obvious that if a bank or financial firm received federal support and has not repaid every penny of it, there should be no large, over-the-top bonuses for anyone, period. Many of the firms reporting huge profits are only able to do so because they received tens of billions in government-backed assurances as to their continued liquidity, and yet they also continue to conduct their business in a restrictive, no-loans-to-any-but-those-with-unblemished-credit-or-significant-colleratal manner. So why shouldn't they see huge profit gains?! Fine ... take your profits and enjoy them ... but do NOT make the mistake of rubbing the faces of the American people in your duplicity and unfeigned joy at pulling-one-over on the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department ... and more importantly, the voters. Doing so is at your own peril. If the banks and financial institutions thought they had a populist uprising following news of AIG's bonus boondoggle, just let those financial institutions reaping the benefits of governmental largesse gloat a bit more, and you'll find the voters calling for, nay, demanding, legislation which could very well end bonus practices as we know them.
NewyorkerR
Obama's inaction is showing.
Get your ass to work OBAMA
manticore1223
I'm not sure the pay czar is doing his job. It might be inherently impossible to stop them from bleeding the banks. I still thing the Government should do what Britain did, for the bailed out ones to split up. Tinier banks would have less capital to kick back to their CEOs.
democracyforall
I agree totally about splitting up the failed banks. No bank should ever be too big to fail.
The pay czar is getting paid, without results. Investment banks need more regulating.
Obama, this is happening under YOUR watch!
slmpirate
This administration is showing me "not so much" when it comes to regulating these whores on wall street.. I am with most everyone on this issue..Do something for crying out loud.. If you dont have the balls to regulate them then you dont deserve another term.
winston1
This administration is in cahoots with the Fed's and Wall Street. Don't you get it by now?
democracyforall
and small businesses only got 0.5% of the stimulus so far. No wonder there aren't more jobs!
neo0071
when it's all gone who is going to be left the bill and with nothing....the people.
back to the middle ages of subsistence farming and bartering
bezvodka
Greed has no limits.
laughorcryagain
the problem is this...
the owners of these companies are protected by laws that allow them make decisions that they see as being in the interest of the sharelholders.
If the government does something stupid like give them free money with no strings to it, well that is very much in the interest of the shareholders.
you can't just confiscate private property because you are pissed off
my advice... sell any stock you own and live within your means and let them go to hell
artois
Actually, from a policy perspective, there was simple and elegant solution. The TARP money should have ONLY gone to guarantee deposits (even ones that exceeded FDIC limits). And bank management should have been left to their own devices. To the extent bank management needed to unwind transactions the threat of indictment should have been a sufficient incentive to get these parasites to comply.
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