Wall Street Pay "Vaults To Record Altitude"

[marmar]

from the Working Life blog:




Wall Street Pay "Vaults To Record Altitude"

by Jonathan Tasini
Wednesday 02 of February, 2011


Sometimes, I wonder whether we all live in a grand farce. But, actually, it's a real-life story about a robbery of the people that continues every day--and today is no different. The robbers grow richer.

From The Wall Street Journal a story headlined: "On Street, Pay Vaults to Record Altitude":

When it comes to paychecks, Wall Street's law of gravity is back in full force: What goes down must come back up.

In 2010, total compensation and benefits at publicly traded Wall Street banks and securities firms hit a record of $135 billion, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. The total is up 5.7% from $128 billion in combined compensation and benefits by the same companies in 2009.

The increase was fueled by a revenue rebound as the financial crisis recedes in the rearview mirror. At 25 large financial firms that have reported full-year results, revenue rose to $417 billion, another all-time high, even though last year's 1% increase was just a fraction of the industry's revenue jolt from 2008 to 2009 as trading and investment banking sprang back to life.

"Things are shifting back to where they were before," said J. Robert Brown, a law professor at the University of Denver who studies compensation and corporate-governance issues.

And:

Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan got a 67% bump in his total compensation for 2010, the company said Monday. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. tripled the salary of Chairman and CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein and increased his stock-based bonus 40% to $12.6 million.

In some respects, this is reaffirming news--reaffirming in that, for those of us who have argued that nothing much has changed, this is concrete evidence. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.workinglife.org/blogs/view_post.php?content_id=15095

[derby378]

1. I hope Obama is reading this...

Apparently, his ploy to bail out Wall Street instead of Main Street has not worked out as well as it could have.

[aquart]

2. Real sensitive types, ain't they?

[Capnjack]

3. If that's what the banks are..

...dumb enough to pay them then who cares?