We lose they win. We win they win bigger .

Why's the rich man always dancin" while the poor man pays the band !

 

Bonuses paid to Wall Street securities industry employees in New York rose 17 percent to 20.3 billion dollars in 2009, state officials said Tuesday.

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said total compensation at the largest securities firms grew even faster and industry profits could hit a record amount after unprecedented losses in 2008.

 

"Wall Street is vital to New York's economy, and the dollars generated by the industry help the state's bottom line," DiNapoli said.

 

"But for most Americans, these huge bonuses are a bitter pill and hard to comprehend. There's a lot of resentment against the industry over its role in the global economic meltdown. Taxpayers bailed them out, and now they're back making money while many New York families are still struggling to make ends meet."

 

The figures highlight the unprecedented turmoil in the financial sector after a near-meltdown in 2008 followed by massive efforts to revive the industry.

 

The bonus pool figures -- which only reflect amounts paid to those who work in New York City -- fell 47 percent in 2008 but rose sharply last year as the sector recovered.

 

The 2009 level remained below the record bonus pool of 34.3 billion dollars in 2006.

 

Napoli said the big bonus payments underscore concerns about risky financial practices that many say led to the boom and bust that dragged the global economy into its worst recession in decades.

Am I the only one who doesn't think it's a crime for them to get bonuses in a year of record profits?

 

Now, if they were a company that has not paid back the TARP, different story.

 

But as a die hard capitalist and American I refuse to buy into this "we should hate the rich" bullcrap.

 

No offense, I'm just really sick of hearing about how evil it is to make money in this country.

I agree NJ609, I am a chef who does not make a lot of money, but a brother in law who works on wall st, does very well, but he works his A_ _ off for it. If we all had the brains and work ethic and college education, we would be on the other side of the fence. So good for them if they make a bonus. I just wish there was a trickle down effect from the Govt. so us middle class workers stop paying the brunt of the tab.

Now, if they were a company that has not paid back the TARP, different story.

 

Recycling a couple of earlier posts I made in another thread on this subject:

 

Are you counting the pass-throughs that went to Goldman as a result of the AIG bailout/paying for CDS at 100%? What about the myriad of low/no cost lending facilities and backstops by the Federal Reserve and FDIC?

 

To refresh your memory:

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/10-ways-say-no-banks-have-not-paid-back-their-debt-taxpayer

 

So, running down the list, the banks paid back TARP. That's a +, but....

 

1. What was the value for bank charter, to get cheap access to the Fed's funds? did they pay back this value yet? No!

2. How about the payment of interest on the banks' excess reserves at the Fed. Have the banks repaid that yet? No!

3. The Fed and the Treasury have purchased hundreds of billions of dollars of Agency debt, Agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and related securities through Treasury purchase programs. Have the banks paid back the capital behind those purchases yet? No!

4. How about the Term Auction Facility? Has the capital behind the benefits of that program been paid back? No!

5. Then there is the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF), has this been paid back? No!

6. Do you remember the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF)? Have the funds behind that been paid back? No!

7. What about the PPIP? No!

8. Hey, there's the Foreign Exchange Swap programs (the currency swap lines, that saved not only our banks but out banks facing counterparties who were short on dollars), has that been paid back? No!

9. There's the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), have the funds behind that been paid back? No!

10. Most importantly, the opportunity cost of ZIRP, which hurts those who do not speculate (or have not speculated) with near free money! How do you pay that back to grandma and her .017% CDs?

 

How do you repay the synthetic bid that the Fed has created under MBS that has rescued the banks from balance sheet purgatory (for now)? How about the accounting fantasy football game that was authorized by FASB last year that has lost fundamental investors who actually count vast sums of money? Then there is those FDIC bond guarantees... Oops, I went way past 1 reasons, didn't I?

 

I can rant on, but if I haven't driven the point home by now, I probably never will. So as you read about Goldman's earnings beat on weaker revenue, consider the advantages that they have, that they didn't pay back, that smaller businesses such mine simply don't have access to.

 

Where's the discount window for the taxpayers, eh? Who pays for the hit if all that agency debt and MBS on the Fed's balance sheet don't perform? The taxpayers.

 

 

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I'm not saying the banks are "evil", however you want to define that, but they sure aren't blameless, either.

 

In the housing bubble peak years, they either overtly committed, or were complicit with, fraud on a large scale with the underwriting of mortgages and/or packaging into mortgage backed securities. They failed to do sound underwriting such as verifying of income and sound appraisals because they knew they could pass the mortgage off onto some other bagholder before it blew up. MBS's are still detonating in the hands of investors around the world. How much damage has been done to pension funds in the US alone?

 

How do you feel about Goldman Sachs selling MBS's to customers on one side of the office, and then taking huge bets against the performance of those same securities on the other side? Is taking taxpayer provided liquidity and using it to finance speculation such as leasing oil tankers to hold oil offshore in the hopes of driving oil prices up in the public interest?

 

How many of the big banks are truly solvent right now? Are you sure? Do you know for certain how much bad debt that they've got in off balance sheet vehicles and/or marked at par when it's not optimally performing? Why is it that we seem to have had such ineffectual regulators and lax accounting standards until recently?

 

Fear or Greed.... that is what will aways drive the markets. In the mean time, as they say... bulls and bears will make money, pigs will get slaughtered. At the end of the day, Wall St. will always make money. If Wall St. suffers, everyone else will suffer to.

 

I don't have a problem with Wall St. making money in of itself; I do have a problem when they are able to privatize their profits while at the same time socializing their losses and effectively "capturing" their regulators.

As far as I'm concerned they should be paying back the TARP with interest.

 

If they did that, OR the government let them off the hook (SHAME ON OUR GOVERNMENT) then they are entitled to pay whatever bonuses they want.

 

This isn't Soviet Russia with a state controlled economy.

Am I the only one who doesn't think it's a crime for them to get bonuses in a year of record profits?

 

Now, if they were a company that has not paid back the TARP, different story.

 

But as a die hard capitalist and American I refuse to buy into this "we should hate the rich" bullcrap.

 

No offense, I'm just really sick of hearing about how evil it is to make money in this country.

 

 

+1 While alot of guys were partying and chasing tail some were chasing degrees and working at entry level jobs to climb the ladder.

If you want to see the embodiment of evil banking then look at your Truth In Lending (TIL) schedule on your mortgage closing documentation.