Posted on 07/03/2009 6:56:45 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Goldman Sachs bankers in line for record bonuses
Bankers at Goldman Sachs could be in line for record bonuses as compensation on Wall Street looks set to rebound in spite of problems in the wider economy.
By James Quinn, Wall Street Correspondent Published: 5:21PM BST 02 Jul 2009
The headquarters of Goldman Sachs. The bank is reportedly on course to produce a total compensation pot of $20bn this year for its bankers Photo: Getty Images Goldman, which continues to attract the very best investment bankers and is chaired by Lloyd Blankfein, is on track to pay staff more than it did in 2007, itself a record year.
Having recently repaid its $10bn (£6bn) bail-out from the US Treasury, thus releasing it from government compensation legislation, the bank is on track to produce a total compensation pot of $20bn this year, according to analysis of analysts' estimates by the Wall Street Journal.
If Goldman manages to deliver the figure, it would mean an average compensation of $700,000 per employee.
Although the pot covers healthcare and other costs including share options, as well as pay and bonuses, the figure is still almost twice the average $363,000 paid out last year. In addition, it is slightly higher than the average $661,000 received in 2007.
The averages are somewhat meaningless, however, given some bankers will receive substantially more than the average and many will receive a lot less.
At the end of Goldman's first quarter, the compensation pot stood at $4.71bn, up by 18pc from the same quarter in 2008, indicating that the analyst's estimates may not be far out.
However, the final figure depends on business for the whole year, and it is known that Goldman does not begin discussing bonuses until the middle of the fourth quarter.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The fingerprints of current and former Goldman Sachs employees are all over this financial disaster, and they’re getting a bonus for their efforts. Is this a great country or what?
Somewhere, Madame Defarge is quietly knitting.
Matt Taibbi nailed it dead on in his Rolling Stone article. These people are organized criminals at a level that makes Bernie Madoff look like an amateur.
Make sure you check out Bubble #6.
Any company will pay it’s key people what it must to keep them. These so called “bonuses” are nothing more then salary paid in a different way and they are contractual in nature not performance driven (although there are other “bonuses that are performance driven. This is done because years ago the Left decided to pass legislation limiting the amount of salary a company can write off as an expense, to one million dollars a year. To get around that companies began paying their key people only what could be claimed as an expense and getting them the balance via a bonus which is not exempt from expenses by the payer.
If any of you here actually believe that a company whose employers salaries are capped by the government at a lower rate then they can get elsewhere will keep these people is smokin’ some serious sh*t.
Truthfully, is anyone here brave enough to stand and admit THEY would stay with a firms a take $1 million in salary because the government says that’s all you can be paid after taking TARP funds, or would you move down the road to a competitor willing to pay you what the market says you are worth, perhaps 3-4 times as much as the million you are getting?
It must be nice being on the other end of the AIG transactions that have cost the US Taxpayer $180 billion.
Let’s see if BO and Turbo-Tim Geithner will vilify their buddies at GS for “excessive pay” during these hard times. Their hypocrisy is breath-taking.
You can label it anyway you want. The problem is the same. Having government in your grip is a good business model, I suppose.
I re-read that over the Christmas holidays.
I have been tempted to take up knitting, myself.
If any of you here actually believe that a company whose employers salaries are capped by the government at a lower rate then they can get elsewhere will keep these people is smokin’ some serious sh*t.”
******
Problem is, they are the government and this has been known since long before 2008. GS and JPM sit at the top of the fascist/corporatist food chain.
Madoff as has been pointed out, was a rank amateur.
If you are claiming the government is paying these companies so they can give their key people bonuses that are actually some sort of payoff then that is serious. The TARP funds were to keep the companies solvent and without good people in key positions that will not happen.
Let me take a guess, from the federal government? Or in other words from the tax payers of the USA.
Amazing - from near bankruptcy to record bonuses in 7 months.
With all due respect, I’m not so sure that anyone has pointed out the main issue here. The main issue, in my opinion, is not that bankers are making a lot of money. The main issue is that, due to the fact that these bonuses can reasonably be believed to have come from the president (via porkulus bailout of GS subsidiaries and creditors), GS employees are now going to be considered obligated to the president.
It’s very much a “I did you a favor, now you owe me a favor” situation. For most people, getting outsized amounts of money from a benefactor, with an implied threat of ruin should that benefactor be displeased, may lead to feelings of obligation and compliance. It’s a pretty potent psychological effect.
This is part of the “I’m all that stands between you and the pitchforks” mindset. That “pitchforks” line wasn’t quite true when Obama said it, but he’s trying to make it as true as possible. Creating a situation in which GS bonuses go way up, while the rest of the country suffers, is part of the process.
Obama has a printing press for his money; he can get as much as he wants. What he needs now is not more money, but compliant, intelligent, connected people to support him and spread his influence. Bankers are one group of such intelligent connected people, and bankers stereotypically are motivated by money. In that context, using money, and lots of it, to buy their loyalty is the obvious thing to do.
Where are those box cars filled with guillotines when we need them. Madam Dufarge indeed . . . LOL LOL !
The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled-dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates. * * *'Where did I find such a great, inspired by events, right on point and very angry editorial ___?', you ask between loud guffaws. Some of you may have even spilled coffee on your keyboards. Yada, Yada, Yada What more can I say. I'm out of here. Please play nice . . .
It wasn’t too long ago that THE ONE announced he was reigning in corporate salaries and bonuses. I guess another one of his promises had an expiration date.
BUMP
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