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The financial markets may be taking a hit lately, but Wall Street is still planning about $38 billion in bonuses this year. Bloomberg News reports that the money was thanks to "a record $9 billion of fees for arranging acquisitions and $5 billion for underwriting initial public offerings and sales of junk bonds." This translate to an average Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers or Bear Stearns worker getting over $200,000 in bonuses.
The irony is that many banks have had billions in losses. Manhattan College professor Charles Geisst told Bloomberg News even banks who have suffered big losses "have to fall in line. If Bear and Merrill plead poverty, they're going to lose all of their good people.''
Bloomberg News helpfully points out that the $201,500 average bonus, which is four times the median American family income, is "enough to buy a Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet, a day for two at a VIP spa suite at New York's Mandarin Oriental hotel, and a year's tuition and fees for a high-school student at Trinity School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan." Curbed suspects that bonus-rich bankers will be investing in real estate, specifically at Superior Ink in the West Village and Manhattan House on East 66th since those two developments "appeal to both stuffy old money men and the young hotshots looking to impress them."
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F Wall Street
the F train doesn't go to wall street!
all about the greed.
haha clever lad
Eat, eat you fucking pigs...oh wait, I forgot, this is America, they earned it.
Yeah, they *earned* it by not creating anything of real value, just by moving paper around and skimming a little for themselves every time.
How about those guys who packaged the valueless high-risk mortgages and sold them to pension funds? What kind of bonuses do they get?
btw that was directed to acrostic...
Robber Barons are back baby! what I find absolutely batshit insane is that these wall st. types who are always complaining about how the poor don't deserve handouts and their financial state is their own fault, are the same oligarchs who begged for handouts from Bernake the Fed when their assets (through their own greed and stupidity) edged towards the precipice in this credit nightmare. It appears wall street isn't a two way street (literally and figureatively.)
what people don't get is that there's just more money in finance so everybody gets paid more. the revenue of the companies justifies paying people so much because per person the firm generates a lot of income.
not to say that there aren't greedy people in finance, but it has less to do with that than economic reality.
Wall Street to the Middle Class, "Let them eat cake."
Rule #1 of life: you're entitled to shit.
Quit yer bitchin.
Please, it's capitalism. If you don't like it, go to France where you can strike because the government wants to take away your handouts.
yada yada yada,
supply and demand, economics 101, capitalism
free market society, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you're entitled to shit, quit your bitching, what racism?
I love France. Especially Chamonix.
If "capitalism" doesn't have any social responsibility what good is it?
@ lemon
Handouts? This world isn't sustained by the jerks who sit back and reap the profit. It turns through the hard work of millions of people.
Get a brain. let's face it, the rich aren't happy either.
Plus, "having" more doesn't a workable economy make.
Get a social vision, or be part of the problem.
errrrrrrrrrm...prepare for some bad shit happening.
look, financial houses are not indicators of the health of the national economy. further, merryl lynch, citicorp, bear stearns, ubs, hsbc and other firms have gotten burned by the credit crunch.
Goldman sachs and, like, berkshire hathway have done well, but only cause they sold hot potatoes or bet against the housing market.
just cause it's all jolly in manhattanland doesn't mean the rest of the nation is ok. and, well, where goes the nation so goes the city of new york.
...i think. maybe manhattan will be sheltered from all this shit.
Ha ha! Billyburg hipsters can whine about i-bankers pricing them out all day long, but they've got to spend their millions somewhere! Dolla dolla bill y'all!