Bonuses

edited November 2007 in The Economy
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Wall Street Plans $38 Billion of Bonuses as Shareholders Lose

Shareholders in the securities industry are having their worst year since 2002, losing $74 billion of their equity. That won't prevent Wall Street from paying record bonuses, totaling almost $38 billion.

That money, split among about 186,000 workers at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos., equates to an average of $201,500 per person, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The five biggest U.S. securities firms paid $36 billion to employees last year......

......The industry's bonuses are larger than the gross domestic products of Sri Lanka, Lebanon or Bulgaria. The average $201,500 bonus is more than four times the $48,201 median household income in the U.S. last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics......
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Comments

  • Scum.

    This is the black side of capitalism. Rats not producing a dang thing, gobbling up more money than they could reasonable spend.
  • How could the corporations justify paying out high bonuses when faced with such mounting losses? I smell shareholder lawsuits.
  • How can they not? If they don't make these payouts, how are the insiders going to be able to continue paying their own mortgages? That many high end homes ending up on the market could only exacerbate the problem. In short, these payouts are to help regular people who's homes might lose value if the payouts didn't happen. Right admirable of them!
  • What that article also sez is those bonuses are about 60 percent of their annual pay. Still disgusting.

    These are not your typical corporations, or bonuses. How many of these guys are hedge fund managers that pay little to no taxes on that? It's a huge unearned loophole. The article also noted the fees for IPO's and mergers (private equity business), set records this year. I assume that is what the bonuses are for.

    They could care less about your 401k and IRA's. That is why I go out of my way to avoid those shysters.
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