How Much Money Do Bankers Make Now?
| Mon Jul. 13, 2009 7:36 AM PDT
A lot, of course. The New York Times reports that Goldman Sachs, "which only recently paid back its government bailout money, will report blowout profits from trading on Tuesday"—$2 billion in four months. The company is set to pay out $18 billion in compensation this year, which works out to over $600,000 per employee. In addition to the TARP money it received, Goldman was a major beneficiary of the federal government's bailout of AIG. But, you know, everyone does this sort of thing, so it's all good. Move along now—nothing to see here.
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Comments
Investment Bankers
Submitted by The Lounsbury (not verified) on Mon Jul. 13, 2009 8:45 AM PDT.
To be accurate, although I am aware Leftist journos are not much concerned with accuracy unless they are critiquing some Right wing politician. As for the vaguely illiterate implication of wrong-doing, well the whole point of bailing out AIG was to prevent serial collapse of its counterparties. Insofar as Goldman is one of the major actors in financial markets (then as an Investment Bank, w/o a Commercial Bank license), they naturally would 'benefit.'
So did many other counter-parties. That was indeed the whole bloody fucking point.
Now of course Leftists fear and hate finance, but the plain historical record shows that financial panics, such as what was building post the failure of Lehman, do very very bad things to your cherished working classes, etc., insofar as they tend to wipe out granny's savings, and Ma & Pa's too.
Lounsbury Troll --
Submitted by Gary K on Mon Jul. 13, 2009 11:09 AM PDT.
At least you admit to accuracy when critiquing the corrupt Right. There is no claim of wrongdoing in this blog - just the reiteration of the point that these banking bigwigs milk so much f#cking money out of the economy that it makes us average joes sick. No, they do not deserve it; no it is not "fair market price" for their skills - they all sit on each other's compensation commitees and rubber-stamp opulant bonuses. Unless you are making $10M plus, why the hell are you supporting them?
why was the financial sector
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon Jul. 13, 2009 1:20 PM PDT.
why was the financial sector bailed out? To maintain... what? We're talking about insurance here. A bank or mortgage broker insuring themselves against losing their shirts if the borrower is unable to pay their loan. If the homeowner cannot continue to make payments, the bank gets the house back. So if the hard asset is still there, what really is being insured are profits to be made from the interest. If I insure my car and it gets totalled in an accident I don't get the full purchase price back. What happens then? I EAT THE LOSS. The bank or mortgage broker should have had their asset (home loan) paid off at appraised value not what they THOUGHT it was worth. All sectors of our federal government bought into the bu**sh*t that this sector could not be allowed to fail. I find it amusing that not more than 10 months ago several of these firms were on the brink of disaster but now, even with overall economic indicators trending down, they are suddenly able to pay back billions. Where did these profits come from?
Ya Gotta be Joking
Submitted by DaveD (not verified) on Tue Jul. 14, 2009 4:09 AM PDT.
So the Leftists are concerned with accuracy, but just want to place blame. Of course the banking sector benefited, and the honcho's income was preserved, because otherwise granny, and Ma & Pa would have lost their savings?
Guess what Loonsbury, although the bankers have not had to give up their lavish lifestyles just because they made *bad* business decisions, but granny and Ma & Pa *did* lose their savings!
The point of the "bailout" was not to preserve the lavish lifestyle of the incompetent bankers whose greed brought the financial system to it's knees, but to limit the carnage as much as possible on Main Street. Wall Street, and all the greedheads there should collapse into the Hudson; Main Street would be much better off.
