Bonuses on Wall Street

Bonuses on Wall Street are not likely to be up much from last year, though they will still be strong. Over all, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase have set aside $89.54 billion this year to pay employees, 2.8 percent less than a year ago, according to data from Nomura.

Total revenue for the five firms, meanwhile, has fallen about 4 percent this year. A study by the influential compensation expert Alan Johnson says broadly that bonuses will be up 5 percent this year across all financial services companies, with employees in some businesses like asset management getting increases of 15 percent.
This is a far cry from 2007, when some firms on Wall Street set records for compensation payouts. That year Goldman Sachs set aside $20.19 billion in compensation and benefits; in 2008, it set aside just half of that amount, $10.93 billion for pay. In 2009, that number climbed to $16.19 billion. These guys were royally rewarded for creating a financial crisis that most other people suffered from.

In the years leading up to the credit crisis some executives became famous for their expenditures, like L. Dennis Kozlowski, the ex-chief executive of Tyco International whose $6,000 shower curtain became a symbol of unnecessary extravagance.

I repeat, and the new Congress wants to extend tax cuts to these people!