If he is so valuable then let him move to a firm that is not having to take tax payer money to pay his bonus. People are only as valuable as the market says they are. It makes no sense for our tax dollars to pay to subsidize someone's salary in any industry other than possibly defense, certainly there is no national security imperative to subsidize the salaries of those on WS! Either they are worth it or they are not. Those that are will go and work for a firm that is run by competent people who will be able to afford to pay what they are worth without a tax payer subsidy. Those that think that they ought to command a larger salary than the market can currently bear can trade their own account or work to convince some funds that they are worth backing but please leave the unwilling investor (ie the US tax payer) out of the equation, it just protects the incompetent and the inefficient.
Not thinking very hard, are we today? Do you mean the same Morgan Stanley that had to be converted to a money market center just so that they could survive? And then hit up the TARP funds to pay compensation? First of all, if you are such a great trader, you can go make more on your own. But since every single big shot trader at a bulge bracket relies on the edges that the firm provides him (cough..order flow..cough), then he has to accept the bad with the good. Like the fact that without the Taxpayers' money, he would not even have a job.
So go ahead and pay them with your money, since you're so happy to do so. Go make a donation. Company bonuses don't happen when the company fails. Since these companies have failed, there should be no bonus. Instead, they are having the people foot the bill. So wait, should I start a business, pay myself a salary, promise myself a bonus, and then run to the government for a bailout cause my company is a failure? Hmm, good idea, where can I sign up and make this happen?
You fall into asinine-inity at times; this is one such time. And then you just get all irrational and try to weave Obama into the thread. GTFO the Obama win. Or not. Just go hang yourself. When you tell me how 'valuable' Wall Street traders are and how they deserve their taxpayer-subsidized bonuses, you really display your incredible naïvite. Your basic point fails. It's beyond a 'shareholder' matter once taxpayer money is directly injected into these lousy firms on Wall Street, lest they fail, hence, not being able to pay salaries, let alone bonuses.
when they're living off their own earnings, no but when they're living on A FUCKING WELFARE CHECK FROM THE TAXPAYERS, THEN YES!!!!!! or are you too fucking stupid to get that?
First of all, where is your data in support of the claim that 97% of Americans are hard working and honest and the vast majority of of Wall Streeters are overpaid crooks? Second, most Americans aren't forced to live in the NYC area, so you have to adjust all the compensation on Wall Street for the fact that a 1200 sq. foot apartment rents for $6K/month and that tax rates in NYC reach close to 50% and parking your car in your building costs $500/ month. So, while the comp looks high, the expenses are astronomical. Third, most Wall Street employees don't make that much money. The only crap they print in the paper is fantasy shit that only the very top guys make. When I was in equity research, the NYT published a fake stat that said the average analyst made $1MM in comp. We howled with laughter. The relevant statistic is the median comp and it wasn't anywhere close to $1MM. Since Wall Street ALWAYS divides comp into bonus and base - even for secretaries - the fact that people got bonuses is not surprising because nobody would ever agree to work for the base. You could be a trash collector and make more than base comp and have a better lifestyle to boot. Finally, MOST Wall Street employees had absolutely zero to do with any of the bad decisions top managment made. The decision to make Merrill the leading bank for subprime bullshit was Stanley O'Neil's goal and anyone who didn't go along with Stan got fired. Why should the options trader who busted his ass and made a ton of money for the firm be punished for Stan's decisions? In fact, if you don't pay the good traders, they will simply leave. And don't kid yourself - people who know how to make money for others will ALWAYS find a job or find investors. Personally, I think all these banks should have been allowed to fail. If the financial system is so damn fragile that it requires this kind of bailout, then it should be scrapped entirely and a new, competitive system should be allowed to emerge from the chaos. But as long as we're going to subsidize this shitty system with taxpayer dollars, we should at least not create a scenario where good workers are incentivized to leave. That will only lead to more and more expensive future bailouts.
Hear Hear. Also, we are not talking about chump change neither. 700B divided by 150mil tax payer is $4666 per taxpayer.