Next week marks the start of Wall Street’s Bonus Week and while consumers across America continue to suffer, the fat cats just keep getting fatter….and while some complain that the rich just kept getting richer under the Bush administration (or Republican administrations in general), the expected 2010 bonuses show that greed, arrogance and the flagrant disregard for the interests of the normal guy are not particular to any party. The very same banks and Wall Street firms that received baahjillions of dollars in federal and taxpayer dollars used that money to lobby against tighter regulations and apparently shoving the rest into their executive’s pockets. It’s no wonder they can’t cut a break to the common guy. Some staggering advance reports….
- Thanks to taxpayers like you who generously bailed banking from the financial shipwreck it created for itself and for us, by the end of 2009 the industry’s compensation pool reached nearly $200 billion.
- Despite windfall profits, the banks will claim almost $80 billion in tax deductions. And nearly $20 billion of those deductions will go to just three institutions “” Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs.
- Ah, yes “” Goldman Sachs, that paragon of profit and probity “” which bet big on the housing bubble and when it popped “” presto! “” converted itself from an investment firm into a bank so it could get your bailout money.
- In 2008, Goldman Sachs paid an effective tax rate of just one percent. I’m not making that up “” one percent! “” while their CEO Lloyd Blankfein pulled down over $40 million.
- Goldman, traditionally one of Wall Street’s top-paying, is expected to report its highest yearly profit in the firm’s 141-year history.
- Despite the mortgage meltdown, financial firms are coming off a blockbuster year. Revenue has rebounded to pre-crisis levels, and 2009 compensation is on pace to approach or surpass the record payouts of 2007.
- In percentage terms, analysts expect overall pay levels to be reined in slightly as companies try to deflect fury. Michael Mayo, an analyst at Calyon Securities, expects Goldman will pay employees about 40% of 2009 revenue, down from 48% in 2008. “We feel Goldman needs to be aware of issues surrounding its comp and should make needed adjustments,” he wrote in a report Friday. His projection of about $18 billion in compensation and benefits represents a 64% jump from 2008. In 2007, Goldman paid employees $20.19 billion.
- In 2008, Citigroup paid $32.4 billion in compensation and benefits, despite a net loss of $27.7 billion. In the first nine months of 2009, it reported $18.7 billion in compensation expenses and profit of about $6 billion. Citigroup reports quarterly earnings and compensation on Jan. 19.
From the Wall Street Journal article here.
