For Wall Street, a very merry, fat bonus Christmas

December 15, 2010 · Posted in News and Current Affairs, The Economy, Wall Street, Wall Street vs Main Street 

The modern day robber barons are making a killing on Wall Street

It’s been a tough year for most Americans, but on Wall Street, the good times are rolling, and rolling, and rolling … and so are the year-end bonuses …

From ABC:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Despite the weak U.S. economy, this year could be the second most profitable for New York City’s securities industry, and the average bonus may top last year’s because so many bankers and brokers have been laid off, the state comptroller said in a report on Wednesday.

“Wall Street earned $21.4 billion during the first three quarters of 2010,” Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said. “While much less than last year’s record of $61.4 billion, which was fueled by federal assistance, the securities industry is on track in 2010 for the second-highest level of profitability on record,” he said.

Last year Wall Street paid out $20.3 billion in bonuses, Di Napoli said, but 2,700 securities and commodities employees got pink slips from September 2009 through last September, according to employment data. The high-paying industry only employed 160,200 people in September, down from a peak of 200,300 in December 2000.

And from MSNBC:

Separately, Goldman Sachs’ Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein and his top deputies will collect about $111.3 million in stock next month in a delayed payoff from last year and their record-setting 2007 bonuses, according to a Bloomberg News report.

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Blankfein will receive about $24.3 million in January, based on Tuesday’s share price, while President Gary D. Cohn will get about $24 million, according to company filings obtained by Bloomberg. The payouts are just a portion of the $67.9 million bonus awarded to Blankfein for 2007 and the $66.9 million paid to Cohn and reflect a 24 percent decline in the value of the bank’s stock.

Within a year after the bonuses were approved, Goldman Sachs took $10 billion from the U.S. Treasury, converted to a bank and was borrowing as much as $35.4 billion a day from Federal Reserve emergency programs, Bloomberg reported, adding that this year the firm paid $550 million to settle U.S. regulators’ fraud charges related to a mortgage-security the company sold in 2007.

So I think we can dispense with the idea that the country has suddenly become a Socialist hell hole, no?

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