The bonuses keep coming
The grim toll that the U.S. mortgage crisis has taken on financial markets has been felt worldwide, from traders in Hong Kong to small-town mayors in Europe to pensioners in the American Midwest.
But largely spared have been financiers on Wall Street, a place where brokers, bankers and traders are called into corner offices at the end of each year and told how large a bonus they’ll receive for the year’s work. The size of the figure reflects their value to the company, and many feared — even complained out loud — that the amount would be badly affected by the subprime mess.
They needn’t have worried. Wall Street bonuses totaled $33.2 billion in 2007, down just 2 percent, by the estimates of the New York state comptroller’s office.
3 comments:
Sorry to hear dat. Well, in these times of financial uncertainty, we all have to scrimp.
But i'm with QT - i can run any of these corporations into the ground just as fast (or faster) and will demand only a $10 million buyout - a fraction of what these guys usually get.
Does dis Blankfein guy look like a total asshole, or what?
At least Goldman Sachs stock price went up. How 'bout the rest of the chumps where they made HYOOGE losses. We make a loss here, no bonuses. Heck, we make slight profit, no bonuses.
But clearly, people are voting with their money, and abandoning crappy financial institutions because their leadership sucks. Or because there's a recession coming. Who knows these days?
Blankfein looks like he should be playing a plutocrat in a wacky screwball comedy film about phokkup plutocrats.
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