Goldman Sachs poised to pay out $9billion to its employees

All I can say is: is this politically acceptable in today's economic climate?

Goldman Sachs sets aside $9billion for pay as revenues drop

Goldman Sachs is set to pay as much as 45pc of its 2010 revenues to its staff in a move that is likely to reignite political anger with the investment bank just days after it settled a high-profile fraud case with American regulators.

Analysts expect Goldman to say that its closely-watched compensation ratio, which indicates the intended level of staff pay as a proportion of its revenues, is between 40pc and 45pc when it announces its second quarter results this week.

Goldman's results will also show for the first time a $600m (£392m) hit for the UK's bonus tax.

The bank is estimated to have set aside just over $9bn in pay for its staff in the first half of 2010, working out at an average payout of $235,429 for each of its 38,500 employees for the last six months of work. Goldman bankers are on track to be paid nearly $500,000 each at full year, with senior bankers being paid far more...

Can you believe what you just read?

I sure can believe it.

And there are still those who will defend Obama, and his minions.

Nothing new here. Most call it a scandal of epic proportions, I call it Tuesday.

Damn sad, to be sure.

These bankers make me sssiiiccckkk. This really ticked me off because Goldman Sachs was the perpetrator of the oil leak.
For the full report on who was responsible for the Gulf disaster, please search here on ATS using WAR on the World and read the article. It is a must-read for everyone.

Had enough yet? What are we going to do about it?

This was so predicted in this thread Goldman Sachs to Pay Record $550 Million to Settle SEC Charges Related to Subprime Mortgage CDO the other day.

reply to post by pause4thought


Why is it anybodies business but Goldman and their shareholders what they pay out to their employees?

Originally posted by ZuluChaka
reply to post by pause4thought

 

Why is it anybodies business but Goldman and their shareholders what they pay out to their employees?

Did they take TARP money?

Even if they didn't, were they not the prime perpatrators (backing up Fannie/Freddie) in the derivatives bubble that is about to put an end to our culture?

How did they manage to be able to pay 9bil in bonuses while many other banks went belly up?

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


It is not whether or not they took TARP money, its whether or not they paid it back yet.

Even if they were the prime perpatrators regarding Fannie/Freddie and/or derivatives it was all perfectly legal.

Maybe they can pay 9bil to their employees because they made better busness decisions than their competitors. My guess is that most of this money is bonuses for sales or for decisions that profited the company. This is how you keep your best employees from going somewhere else.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

Yep. Part of it is in the thread I linked to.

Derivative currency swaps
Subprime fiasco that is costing people their homes that it secretly bet on crashing
Pension scandals and evisceration

I'm sure there was more.

reply to post by ZuluChaka
If it was perfectly legal, why were they fined $550M?

[edit on 7/17/2010 by ~Lucidity]

reply to post by ~Lucidity


I dont know why they were fined 550 million. Why dont you tell me why.

If the penalty didnt also include controls on what they pay their employees then they have every legal right to pay whatever they want as long as the majorty of shareholders are in agreement.

reply to post by ZuluChaka

For the second time, why don't you read the thread I linked to on said topic. Toodles.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Just read it. I still dont see where they are doing anything wrong. They got busted marketing some products in a bad way, agreed to the fine, and that is it. You cannot just keep punishing somebody once they settle.

Originally posted by ZuluChaka
reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

 

It is not whether or not they took TARP money, its whether or not they paid it back yet.

Even if they were the prime perpatrators regarding Fannie/Freddie and/or derivatives it was all perfectly legal.

Maybe they can pay 9bil to their employees because they made better busness decisions than their competitors. My guess is that most of this money is bonuses for sales or for decisions that profited the company. This is how you keep your best employees from going somewhere else.

With all due respect, that is complete BS. You do not do this. If that is the real way they run a shop, it is the worst leadership I have ever seen. A bonus? Sure. Maybe 2 months pay, max.

I took over financial ops at a call center that had netted 25k the previous year. My first year, we made 12 mil. I got a 3% raise for this performance, plus a company award with a trophy and a 100 dollar gift card. My second year, we made 20.5 million. My reward was to be asked to remotely manage 2 other sites as well, with no pay increase.

I did it. Why? Because it is good experience, and it allows me to learn new skills. I didn't need a 1mil dollar bonus.

I dn't buy that excuse. It isn't about talent. It is about paying people to devise and execute schemes that are beyond the pale. Things that there are no laws against, because they are so intricate and full of deception one would think a law would not be needed.

And if they took any TARP money, whether they paid it back or not it is our business. They made it our business when they came begging.

Originally posted by ZuluChaka
reply to post by ~Lucidity

 

I dont know why they were fined 550 million. Why dont you tell me why.

If the penalty didnt also include controls on what they pay their employees then they have every legal right to pay whatever they want as long as the majorty of shareholders are in agreement.

They do have this legal right. But that is the debate. They shouldn't. The financial market should not be a state sponsored place for raping old peoples pension plans.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
And there are still those who will defend Obama, and his minions.

Yes, we're still here. Probably because it was the republicans that gave Goldman Sachs the $10 Billion TARP Bailout and another $13 Billion by the backdoor through AIG. Not Obama. Not even close.

reply to post by ZuluChaka


Wow, someone that shares my viewpoint.

If you guys weren't paying attn. GS really did nothing wrong. What was wrong was the government fiasco over them being a principal market maker in institutionally traded securities.

Please, rewatch the Senate hearing (guessing maybe .009% has), if you want to call it that. More like a circus.

reply to post by GreenBicMan


That's right. After all, they're doing God's work...

But I do agree, they're free to give whatever bonuses they want. Their business relies on having the best financial talent in the business and they have to pay for that edge.

reply to post by mythatsabigprobe


I never said that, but if you familiarize yourself with some key terms from finance you would have to agree rather than be suspect.

I am almost 10000x sure if they wanted to find something dirty they could have found it on their FX Trading desk. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) FX is unregulated. So there are literally no rules - would love to see that work.

In the "real world" where things are regulated like the CME / NYSE (yes, no joke) these are big time securities / regulated well. There are no shenanigans really, just caught off guard once by liquidity providers totally shoring up volume (flash crash). Time and Sales is available for anything, and volume and time stamp is as well.

Most of this you have been hearing is just media hype and senators that need to be re-elected. If you want to blame someone, blame them.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


The question isn't did they take TARP money, the question is, did they pay it back?

Now, once they paid back the money, they can pretty much pay their employees whatever. It's sad to see companies that helped destroy this economy being able to flaunt such extravagance in the faces of those that they crippled financially. But that's a free market system.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned how they've been making their money:

Elites literally hack the stock market with AI

While the SEC is busy investigating Goldman Sachs, it might want to look into another Goldman-dominated fraud: computerized front running using high-frequency trading programs.

Market commentators are fond of talking about “free market capitalism,” but according to Wall Street commentator Max Keiser, it is no more. It has morphed into what his TV co-host Stacy Herbert calls “rigged market capitalism”: all markets today are subject to manipulation for private gain....

Also called High Frequency Trading (HFT) or “black box trading,” automated program trading uses high-speed computers governed by complex algorithms (instructions to the computer) to analyze data and transact orders in massive quantities at very high speeds. Like the poker player peeking in a mirror to see his opponent’s cards, HFT allows the program trader to peek at major incoming orders and jump in front of them to skim profits off the top. Note that these large institutional orders are our money — our pension funds, mutual funds, and 401Ks...

(This came out a good 12-18 months ago.)

reply to post by pause4thought


Now is that illegal? (I hope so) but if it's not illegal, then there's not much you can do about it. Sure, it's slimy, but what do you expect from these people?