vreporter

How Wall Street Keeps Dooming Itself

While I'd be the first to join this bashing on greed, many of us seem to be falling for some bad perspectives on the situation - yours included.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but:
1) We seem to be making much out of the term "bonus" whereas in majority on Wall Street it is a "salary" that's apportioned for various accounting, tax, savings plan issues - as a bonus. I know many back-office and support staff who work for 40k a year at some of the names you have mentioned. The large "percentage" bonus they receive still barely puts food on the table when one accounts for their metro NYC cost of living. So total compensation is actually quite modest and the bulk (not all) of these announced bonuses do apply here.

2) In making comparisons to prior years, I ahven't seen any of these arguments back up with the change in number of workers. I find it hard to believe that Wall Street employed the same number of workers in 2008 as they did in 1985. That would make your math on comparisons, not only poor, but possibly inflated in the wrong direction.

So, living in the metro NYC area is expensive, in general.
The change in the number of workers doesn't correlate with the likely change in bonus totals being scolded.
And the definition of total compensation seems to be lost in the definition of bonus.

Clarifying these points will probably bring you to a better conclusion on this topic. I'm sure there are still many who did receive outrageous and undeserving payments. But those numbers probably wouldn't make the headlines currently underway.

(a consultant to Wall Street on other unrelated matters)