Wall Street bonuses rose 17% to $20.3 bln in 2009

February 23, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Category: Economy │ Comments: 5 comments

Wall Street bonuses climbed 17% to $20.3 billion last year as stock and corporate bond markets rebounded strongly on the back of unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimuli from developed-world governments.

In 2008, the industry lost a record $42.6 billion.

Something is VERY wrong with this picture.

Instead of being punished for their considerable role in this crisis (and the next), and their part in destroying retirement funds and ruining millions of lives, wallstreet has been rewarded. The government handed them taxpayer money so they could make good on their bad bets rather than go under, and they turn around and give themselves record bonuses? This figure doesnt even count the money from shares handed out as bonuses.

Ghastly behavior as my grandmother would say.



5 Comments so far

  1. HH February 24th, 2010 9:32 am

    Fuck, I should have worked in banking. You cannot screw it up, even the muppets get monster bonuses.

  2. ptsp February 24th, 2010 9:36 am

    Well, when things get really bad over the next decades they will also most likely to be the first to be lynched by the mob, if they have not already done a runner.

    Over the long-term, through many centuries, historians give nations an average of about 200 years before they burn out. Why? Because the “blind optimism” that makes a nation great in the early years of its rise to power and glory becomes, paradoxically, its worst enemy in the end-days.

    Their arrogance traps them in a self-sabotaging cycle that weakens their resolve, makes them vulnerable to new, unpredictable challenges, ultimately destroying them from within. That happens over and over throughout history, even as their optimistic brains tell them they’re still the greatest.

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/death-of-us-capitalism-the-final-10-scenes-2010-02-23?pagenumber=1

  3. HH February 24th, 2010 2:53 pm

    Most will have retired by then and be completely anonymous. There will be no lynching and they will get away with the crime of the century. Genius.

  4. ptsp February 24th, 2010 3:52 pm

    Yea, quite possibly. But it has nothing to do with Genius, and everything to do with the fact they have friends in high places.

  5. ptsp February 24th, 2010 9:02 pm

    A year and a half after they were minutes away from bankruptcy, how are these assholes not only back on their feet again, but hauling in bonuses at the same rate they were during the bubble?

    The answer to that question is basically twofold: They raped the taxpayer, and they raped their clients.

    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/32255149/wall_streets_bailout_hustle/print

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