Times are tough for the "have nots", but the "haves" are doing better than ever.

[girl gone mad]

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/01/haves-and-have-nots.html">Calculated Risk points out these contrasting stories in today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/09/business/AP-US-Unemployment-Pay-Cuts.html">For the Unemployed, New Job Often Means a Pay Cut

Unemployed for nearly a year, David Becker was relieved to land a new job in information technology last summer.

The offer carried a price, though: It was a lower-rung job than the one Becker had lost. He had to uproot his family from Wisconsin to Nevada. And, like many formerly jobless people who find work these days, Becker is now paid far less than before -- $25,000 less.

It's one of the bleak realities of the economic recovery: Even as more employers are starting to hire, the new jobs typically pay less than the ones that were lost.

In the government's data, a job is a job. More jobs point to a growing economy. But to people who used to earn $60,000, a new $40,000 job means they'll spend less -- and contribute less to the recovery.

Vs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/business/10pay.html">For Top Bonuses on Wall Street, 7 Figures or 8?

Everyone on Wall Street is fixated on The Number.

The bank bonus season, that annual rite of big money and bigger egos, begins in earnest this week, and it looks as if it will be one of the largest and most controversial blowouts the industry has ever seen.

Bank executives are grappling with a question that exasperates, even infuriates, many recession-weary Americans: Just how big should their paydays be? Despite calls for restraint from Washington and a chafed public, resurgent banks are preparing to pay out bonuses that rival those of the boom years. The haul, in cash and stock, will run into many billions of dollars.

Industry executives acknowledge that the numbers being tossed around — six-, seven- and even eight-figure sums for some chief executives and top producers — will probably stun the many Americans still hurting from the financial collapse and ensuing Great Recession.

Goldman Sachs is expected to pay its employees an average of about $595,000 apiece for 2009, one of the most profitable years in its 141-year history. Workers in the investment bank of JPMorgan Chase stand to collect about $463,000 on average.

[geckosfeet]

1. How long can we live with this inequity? How far can it go?

[golfguru]

2. Wall street salaries...

are truly exorbitant for people who manufacture nothing tangible,
just push paper around, make financial deals and skim off the cream.

[T Wolf]

3. Even worse - they skim even when there is no cream. In fac, most of what they do is not

designed to make cream, only waste the milk.

[happy_liberal]

4. K&R

one of these days they are going to push We the People too far...

[Djarun]

5. Maybe its time we got rid of all the lobbyists & then changed all the rules that they play by?

[Djarun]

6. "they" meaning JPMC, Goldman, etc.

[abluelady]

7. If Bonuses were Not so Big

Where would all that money go? How are the banks making so much money?