From Washington Post:

Wall Street, helped by improving profits, is on track to pay employees as much as, or even more than, it did in the pre-crisis days. So far this year, the top six U.S. banks have set aside $74 billion to pay their employees, up from $60 billion in the corresponding period last year.

The increase in set-asides for employee pay has raised the ire of Washington, where lawmakers denounced financial leaders for returning to old habits and vowed to enact measures governing executive compensation.

Is it me, or does it seem like banks and financial firms look for any excuse to increase employees and management pay. In contrast, I’ve worked at companies where I busted my ass for years and got a 10% pay raise. I’ve had to LEAVE companies to move up on the corporate ladder and get considerable pay increases.

These people produce NOTHING, but play with large numbers. Those firms seem to be intent on increasing the reality of a salary in the marketplace by making obscene salaries the norm.

While I don’t work at these companies (I actually went to college and studied a profession that requires me to do more than make a few calls and shift a few papers), I suspect some of the conversations go something like this:

“Hey, Bob, I saw you cleaned your desk this month. I’m raising your bonus pay by $300,000!

“Hi Sheryl. It seems you’ve brought in four clients accounts that increased our investment capital by $90,000. We’re giving you a $250,000 raise!

Now, I could be completely ignorant on this, but HOW do you explain this rush to incent? There are millions out of work across this country because of the reckless actions of these people. Their actions have created this result. Whatever results they’ve created in the last 1/2 year, it can’t possibly make up for the massive depletion of capital they were responsible for the previous three years or more.

In my opinion, none of these people deserve one cent more until everyone who’s lives they’ve destroyed are able to create new lives, maybe with the help of a loan from them. Until that time, they should live the lives the rest of us do:

– Work hard, and when there’s real, true legitimate increases in revenue (not projections based on money that may or may not exist - or is the result of tax payer funds) then you get a pay increase…of 10%.

– Stop telling the rest of us you NEED this $300,000 bonus increase because your Summer home’s deck is only 1600 square feet and it is dwarfed by those of your neighbors.

– Live within your means (i.e. your “MEANS” do not mean personal expenditures of over $100,000 a month and a mortgage of $12,000 a month).

If you cannot do that, well, maybe your bank doesn’t deserve tax payer bailout money. Maybe your bank needs to have a special increase in corporate taxes based on the percentage of salary and bonus increases.

Want healthcare reform paid for? Increases in social security and medicare? THESE firms will be your cash cow unless they stop acting like arrogant, callous little bitches who have NO UNDERSTANDING OF THE VALUE OF A DOLLAR.

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From Huffington Post:

After its bonus payments ignited a firestorm of criticism earlier this year, American International Group Inc. is asking the federal government to weigh in on the insurer’s plan to resume paying millions in promised retention incentives next week, according to media reports.

AIG, once the world’s largest insurer, has asked the Obama administration’s compensation czar, Kenneth R. Feinberg, to approve the payments in order to head off any public outrage, The Washington Post reported Thursday evening.

The budget of my company’s clients have been cut in half due to the economy. We’re just hanging on, really, in hopes that things will bet better by the end of the year. Most people are in the same boat, well, except for Taylor Swift who seems to be doing very well.

Meanwhile, you have these shitbirds at AIG arriving at the rationale that they must pay millions out, once again in less than a year, to these pigs who:

a) can’t get by on half a million or more,

b) have so many offers from other tainted financial institutions that they can string along their current company for more of OUR money,

c) are simply the vessel to which companies like AIG continue to play loose and fast with other people’s money and align their own pockets, or

d) have compromising photos of all the top executives at this firm and can bribe them for whatever they want.

One of my old bosses was a guy who made it big as a commercial director many years back (he is now gone) and was driven EVERYWHERE around Manhattan because he no longer had a license nor did he need one. It was the first time I heard someone utter the phrase, “Once you step into the limo, you never step out.” The difference with this man is he actually worked his way into his position, arrogant as he was.

These paper pushers at AIG are speculators - bad one’s at that - and the failure of that company is incentive enough for NO ONE there to receive one cent more than their previous salary (if that).

I am so fucking sick and tired of these companies insulting my intelligence with this bullshit about how their “best and brightest” will fly the coop if they don’t plop down another million or more in front of them to keep them on. Here’s a word of advice: YOU DON’T HAVE ANY BEST AND BRIGHTEST! THEY ARE WITH THE FIRMS THAT DON’T NEED TAXPAYER BAILOUT MONEY! Your best and brightest are responsible for this mess, and this culture of throwing six to seven figures around like it’s monopoly money is an insult TO EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN WHO REALLY WORKS!

My wife and I live in New York. We make a combined salary of 185,000. We consider ourselves pretty lucky and relatively well-off, even though the national consensus is that we are simply middle class here in New York. Well, let me tell you something. We still take vacations. We still save for our kid’s college education. We still pay all of our bills without worrying (partly because we bought a house we could afford and not a McMansion we couldn’t to show off), we save for retirement and life is not tough - so this suggestion that these fuckheads can’t get by on their base salary (which could be anywhere from $150,000 to $650,000) is a big, steaming pile of crap.

Money is not money to these people. It’s poker chip. Status. A way to measure their shallow lives against that of the broker friend in the next cubicle who just got a summer home in Nantucket and asks you where you’re taking your summer?

The rest of us are paying our taxes and that money is finding it’s way into these people’s pockets - and mind you, they don’t appreciate the weight of that. All that matters to them is that they are getting as much as Jimmy over at Goldman Sachs because they can’t afford that new Lotus unless they do.

I’ll never fault someone who really earns their money, but most of these shitheads don’t. They do menial jobs that anywhere else would be considered middle management - and they’re fleecing us for all we have as we struggle to work through this year. Dicks.

Current News AIG, wall street bonuses

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?

Current News AIG, bank compensation, million dollar bonuses, wall street bonuses

Under the president’s plan, companies that want to pay their executives more than $500,000 will have to do so through stocks that cannot be sold until the companies pay back the money they borrow from the government, according to administration officials.

Imagine the Bush administration EVER conceiving a rule like this, let alone enforcing it. This is what is called common sense.

I got into an argument with a friend of mine who insists the security of financial industry is based on these banks in question keeping their best talent. His claim is that these brokers and money managers will jump ship if their bonuses are pulled.

And my answer? TO HELL WITH THEM.

Fuck you if $500,000 a year isn’t enough when you’re FAILING AT YOUR JOB.

Fuck you for suggesting that it’s the government’s fault that you can’t regulate your own actions and decide between a smart move and a risky move.

Fuck you if you feel the taxpayers aren’t entitled to some oversight for their hard-earned money.

Fuck you if you think you know better. You obviously didn’t. While I can’t blame you for everything that’s happened in this economy, I do know my math. When a bank gets 100 billion in government loans, throws away 15 billion in bonuses - and STILL has trouble issuing commercial paper - there’s something terribly wrong there.

If you’re so optimistic about your bank’s future, take those bonuses in stock options. If not, then take a flying leap off a short pier.

Politics bailout, bankers, obama bonus, wall street bonuses

These firms are already struggling, and do you want to see your top performers walk out the door to another firm? So, you know, we don’t know how this is gonna go over with the public, but right now, that’s how Wall Street is defending itself.- Melissa Lee, Today Show

Living in a bedroom community outside of New York City, I know many people who work on Wall Street. Most of them have jobs that are so esoteric it’s difficult enough to explain what they do let alone why they get such huge bonuses, but a simpler way to explain this abuse is to tell the story of a girl friend of mine.

She’s in a different field now, but 8 years ago she was a secretary at one of the larger brokerage firms on Wall Street. As a secretary, her salary was $75,000, and her expected bonus every year was around $150,000.

A secretary making $225,000 a year for doing nothing more than any regular secretary would be doing - and she agreed, it was insane.

There are those, like the woman quoted above, who defend the bonus structure on Wall Street, and many who have suggested that these people count on their bonuses. First off, lets put aside the argument about keeping your best people by spreading the wealth. My first question is why do these people rely on these bonuses? Answers I’ve received have been along the lines that it’s an “extension” of salary and many of the brokers and fund managers consider that part of their yearly income. Without that money, it would be like eliminating 2/3 of their salary and putting their expenses in jeopardy.

My second question would be this: If these people cannot manage their own lifestyles with their base salary - many times between $150,000 and $180,000 - how well can I expect they will handle my money? Well, obviously they cannot, thus the situation we find ourselves in with the financial meltdown.

Politics bailout, financial meltdown, wall street bonuses