Why Wall Street bonuses aren’t deserved.
Being the type of person who works hard for a living and makes a wage comparable to the work I do, it has always been grotesque to me the kind of compensation those in the financial industry receive as a standard of business. It’s one thing if those making these enormous amounts were the greatest sales people in the world or created something innovative and unique, but most of them are run-of-the-mill employees and sales people who couldn’t sell water to a fish if they really had to.
These people don’t deserve their bonuses and here’s why:
When people have money, where does that money go? It goes in a bank or a financial management institution. No one is keeping it under their pillow. A few people are investing it directly in hopes of making profits through other businesses. But not the majority. The majority of the United States sticks their money in a bank, mostly in money market accounts and mutual funds. Now, unlike my business where you have to do a song and dance just to convince people you have value to them, a bank does not suffer from this fate (well, until recently). If you decided to pursue a job as a broker, very likely you’d be able to find people to give you money. It’s not as hard as selling someone on investing in a movie. You’ve got a bank. You’ve got thousands of employees. You have many mutual funds and products and the odds are some of them are giving decent returns even if others are not. It’s the luck of the draw with large companies.
So, really, how hard do you have to sell someone - as a bank employee, a financial planner or a fund operator - on your products and their need to give their money to you. In my opinion, pretty easy. Sure, you might have to wine and dine the deep pocketed a little (one the company’s dime, not yours), but in the end it’s like selling the popular car on the lot; you KNOW people are going to come looking for it.
Therefore, my disgust with the multi-million dollar bonuses afforded these assholes at AIG and banking firms is enormous. THEY HAD THE EASIEST SALES JOB IN THE WORLD. Give me money. I’ll get you 10%. 15%. 20%. Just look at my fund/money market/ira/etc.
Do they deserve some bonus for bringing in business? Sure. Something reasonable. But the majority of the money made from these accounts SHOULD GO IN THE POCKET OF THE PERSON GIVING THEM THE MONEY!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I knew a secretary on Wall Street making $225,000 ten years ago. She wasn’t even involved in selling. I have other friends who work in different firms. Only one of them is a trader. The others have salaries of $150,000 or more - and still get substantial 6 figure bonuses for doing nothing more than pushing paper and knowing a few things. Reason? There’s ALOT of clients. It’s a bank. EVERYONE who ever put money into a bank is a client that they can manipulate profits from - sometimes for doing NOTHING.
Given the state of America, there needs to be some consideration for the users of banks over the brokers who know very little. Most of Wall Street is legalized gambling. They can call it whatever they want, but that’s all it is. If they knew anything, why would be where we are now?
Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.
Allen Taylor
Thanks for the compliment, Allen. Most of the time I say things that just seem to tick people off and result in a barrage of colorful expletives.
OK, where to begin. The bonus money these guys make is obscene. While they probably don’t deserve it, we don’t have the right to say,”What the hell?! You can’t pay yourself this outrageous ammount of money!”
While AIG is wrong for paying out the bonuses, it is our fault and the fault of congress. Those ass holes on capital hill should for go all payment THEY recieve for letting this happen. Christopher Dodd authored the legislation in the stimulus bill giving AIG the loop hole. Obama, the senate, and the house were all so concerned about doing SOMETHING that they didn’t go through the bill with a fine tooth comb, and that is why we are having this outrage towards AIG and companies like them.
On another note, I am more upset with congress and this hypocritical outrage they have towards AIG. AIG was given several billion dollars to help them out, and they put a small fraction of it towards these bonuses. CONGRESS SPENT OVER 750 BILLION DOLLARS, AND HAVE HAD BILLIONS OF THE BILLIONS ON THEIR OWN BULL SHIT SPECIAL PROJECTS!! These are the most hypocritical uncle fuckers I have ever seen!
Dodd is a hypocrite. Geitner is a pussy. Nonetheless, they weren’t the one’s pushing for these bonuses - AIG was.
If you work for a company where everyone gets paid in cocaine for 10 years, it becomes a non-issue for them after a while. From the inside, nobody can see how absolutely wrong it is.
Wall Street brokerage houses, insurance companies and banks throw money around like it means nothing - because it does to them. People who push paper get bonuses that would be a high-end salary for other folks. It IS obscene - and itt’s their obscenity, not our governments.
The problem with our government is they’re so in bed with these folks, THEY don’t see where they’re wrong either.
But I have to give the majority of “wrong” to AIG. They just don’t get it.
..uncle fuckers. Good term.