$100,000,000,000

[n2doc]

One Hundred Billion Dollars. In Bonuses. To Wall Street. At Christmas.

Kinda sums up what is wrong with this country, doesn't it?

Article on the implications for Real Estate:

Then last week came reports about the phantasmagoric bonuses that Wall Street is handing its top-tier employees. Goldman Sachs Group alone is giving "$16.5 billion for salaries, bonuses and benefits, or an average of $622,000 for each employee," according to the New York Times. The Financial Times reported that Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos. would shell out "about $12 billion in compensation -- more than $300,000 per employee."

But in the fun-house world of American capitalism, don't count on these greenbacks being distributed in such an equitable manner. Instead, the top rainmakers are expected to walk away with multimillion-dollar checks in their Brooks Bros.' pockets -- with Goldman Sachs' "golden 25" receiving $25 million apiece and some big dealmakers scooping up as much as $50 million.

All told, there have been estimates that Wall Street Santas would deliver more than $100 billion this year -- more than quadruple the record $21.5 billion in year-end bonuses handed out last year.

Where will this river of liquidity flow? In addition to furs, diamonds and other pricey tchotchkes, the biggest beneficiary of the Wall Street wellspring may be the luxury real estate market.

"When these guys learn what their bonuses are, we are among the first people they call," Pamela Liebman, the chief executive of the Corcoran Group brokerage, told the New York Times. "They call their mothers, and then their real estate brokers."

The Times reported that the bonuses are being poured into luxury apartments in Manhattan and second or third residences outside the city. Here in the Bay Area, there's not enough of a financial industry to fuel a luxury condo boom. But according to Seth Weinstein, president of Hannah Real Estate Investors, a Connecticut developer of residential housing, the bonus boom is already exploding in markets far beyond the Manhattan skyline.

"Wall Street people are coming and spending their bonuses now before they've even been given -- they've only been declared," he said of the company's 450 new condominiums. "The high-end units are moving very quickly.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2006/12/22/carollloyd.DTL

[GreenTea]

1. Will it ever stop, how can it?

As long as the stockholders don't complain or file suit...it'll only continue and the bonus' will get larger and even more out of proportion to the workers...How would you stop it?

[n2doc]

2. Simple- Taxes

Make the compensation be not deductable. Make cap gains taxed at a higher rate. Make the upper 1% of wage earners pay 40%, like in the Clinton years (I would argue for a top rate of 50% on earnings above 10 mil until the deficit is brought under control). Then if the companys want to hand it out, at least it would do the country some good rather than just a few well placed real estate holders.

Come to think of it, 100 billion is what W just asked for to pay for Iraq- I say we take it all and tell them- "Hey, we are keeping you safe from those Terrorists, right? Kinda like protection money!" See how long the war lasts then!

[GreenTea]

5. It would somehow have to be made very, very clear to the American people...

that the taxes raised are for exactly that purpose - taxing the extremely rich...

The republicans are masters of distortion and will use all their media whores to say see the Dem's are raising taxes on you again, even though it's bullshit and the taxes wouldn't be raised for workers and the middle classes, certainly not the poor.

Clinton taxed the rich and they howled like crazy, the rich & republicans don't think they should be taxed at all...but they sure as fuck want to use all the benefits, the military, the courts, the roads, etc. etc...

And when Clinton left a budget surplus, the rich just wait until a republican steals office and then they raid the treasury, because they want that surplus they really believe it belongs to them, and the republican president immediately lowers taxes on just the rich....But announces it's for the poor & middle class, and again their owned media whore recite exactly as their masters tell to.

It's a very difficult thing to do when these same rich own the media and only get their lies across.

[n2doc]

6. I didn't say it would be easy

And you are right, Pelosi could propose a tax hike only on bonuses larger than 10 million, to go directly to pay for the War, and the Pukes would still be yelping about how the Dems were raising Taxes on the "middle class". They nearly got away with getting rid of the estate tax, which only now affects the richest 1 percenters...

[shireen]

9. it's hard for regular middle-class to do anything

since our retirement funds are usually tied up in mutual funds. That dilutes our power to zero. Most individual stock holders are rich, probably getting fat bonuese themselves.

It's a nauseating phenomena.

[sweetheart]

3. Yes, then comes the inflation

The money is concentrated in to large metro areas where it inflates property
prices and whatnot. The money is sucked out of the rural areas where property
values stagnate and wages fall. But since city money defines the value of the
dollar, the currency will be worth less.

Yet the money supply is less inland, and they'll loosen the gates by issuing
more currency, say 10% more dollars flood out the gates, and every person who
has savings across the country gets 90 cents on every dollar they worked for...
all thanks to the inflationary pressures from the big bonuses.

The public finances this sort of wealth concentration through the federal reserve
cartel and the theft through usury.

[mntleo2]

4. Geeeez! What A Bunch Of Greedheads! n/t

[shadowknows69]

7. Time to start sharpening the guillotines?

So many Bastiles, so little time.

[matt819]

8. And, lined end to end. . .

they would circle the globe roughly 350 times, plus/minus

[TahitiNut]

10. How many WTC's would that pay for?

:eyes: