Who cares if Wall Street 'talent' leaves?
If lower pay lures some of Wall Street's finest away, so be it. It's not as if the best and brightest were doing a good job to begin with.
By Colin Barr, senior writer
October 23, 2009: 10:13 AM ET
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- There's no need to fear a Wall Street brain drain -- despite the crackdown on pay by Washington.
On Thursday, White House pay czar Kenneth Feinberg outlined compensation restrictions at seven firms that got special bailouts, and the Federal Reserve proposed to review pay practices at 28 unnamed giant banks.
Critics warn that reining in pay makes it hard to keep talented employees. Hemmed in, institutions like AIG (AIG, Fortune 500),Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) could lose their best people.
These firms would then perform even more abysmally, if that's possible, leaving them hard pressed to repay tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer-backed loans.
Still, we say Godspeed to this "talent." After all, the traders and suits in the corner offices don't exactly have an unblemished track record. In 2008, Citigroup, BofA and Merrill Lynch (since acquired by BofA) posted a grand total of $51 billion in losses.
Yet even as they were running themselves into the ground, the firms managed to pay out more than $12 billion in bonuses -- including 1,606 million-dollar-plus bonuses, according to a report from the New York attorney general's office.
"Even a cursory examination of the data suggests that in these challenging economic times, compensation for bank employees has become unmoored from the banks' financial performance," the report said.
Meanwhile, it's hard to imagine that defection-hit firms would have a lot of trouble finding qualified replacements in the current job market.
Unemployment has doubled nationally since December 2007, when the recession started. Securities industry employment has fallen 10% nationwide and 14% in New York from a mid-2008 peak, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, costing some 90,000 jobs in the U.S.
And Goldman Sachs' (GS, Fortune 500) charm offensive notwithstanding, it looks like the official response to runaway pay is just starting.
The Fed's plan to weigh big banks' compensation plans against their potential for undermining the economy could eventually put pressure on pay at all the big banks.
"This could be a game changer," said Simon Johnson, an economist at MIT. "There will be a lot of pressure on them in Congress to stick it to the big firms."
But maybe the best reason not to fret about talent flight is one familiar to cubicle dwellers everywhere: just because someone has a big, high-paying job doesn't mean they're good at it.
Take Bank of America, for instance. The bank's longtime CEO, Ken Lewis, unexpectedly announced his retirement this month, while agreeing to give back his 2009 salary.
Lewis didn't say why he was leaving, but it seems that criticism over his empire building, mishandling of the Merrill acquisition and outsize pay got to him. The Charlotte Observer reported he had grown tired of the "mud being thrown on him day by day."
Another helping or two of that mud could be just what Wall Street needs.
- posted on 10/23/2009
就等人开线了。
是双管齐下,财政部的“工资沙皇” 和 FED 双管齐下。两管都是做show, 做给老
百姓看,trying to appease their anger 而已。并试图强化此次危机是“贪婪”
引起的理论。
此次危机的主要原因是FED和银行互相利用互相保护的勾结。什么是银行?银行是那
些银行的那些大股东。不是那些CEOs. 那些银行大股东是幕后的。是他们和FED的互
相利用互相保护引起了此次危机。
财政部的“工资沙皇” 和 FED 双管齐下,针对的不是那些银行大股东,而是区区
的CEOs (被那些大股东雇佣的区区经理们) 和下层干活的。银行在危机暴露前所做
的,都是那些大股东让那些干活的做的。最终决策者是那些幕后大股东。由此就更
看出了财政部的“工资沙皇” 和 FED 双管齐下 打干活的、不打大股东、不打FED自
己 那样的做show 的本质。又一出丑陋的演戏而已。但是,多数老百姓就是吃那一
套,因为他们不知道银行大股东和FED狼狈为奸的真相,他们不懂他们的钱到底是怎
么被FED和银行大股东们骗走的。
让老百姓信统治者们想让他们信的,做财产转移。做得多巧妙呀! - Re: Who cares if Wall Street 'talent' leaves?posted on 10/23/2009
财政部的“工资沙皇” 和 FED 贼喊捉贼,而银行的大股东(另外的贼)始终隐在幕后,
从来不出来,不需要出来,因为 有政府为他们服务。政府为何为他们服务?因为他
们为政府服务。那就是我前面狼狈为奸之说法的由来。演戏是给信那些戏的人们看
的。从主席到下面为他和银行大股东们服务的,全是王八蛋。天真的人们认为他们
的意愿是好的(就象毛主席那样),鬼知道呢。
- posted on 10/23/2009
一些人用conspiracy theory 来辩驳。在他们眼里,只要是他们不喜欢的,就都是conspiracy
theory.
让那些银行在储户挤兑中破产,既教训了那些银行大股东们,又教训了轻信的储户
们。那才是真正能警告那两种人不要犯错误的方式。是一种自然的方式。但是,在
“too big to fail”的谎言下,银行大股东和FED三番五次无一例外地把轻信的人
们都骗了,白花花的银子就那么从轻信的人们的口袋里进了别人的口袋。那些混帐
王八蛋们最大的收获是:从此,市场不works的理论在多数老百姓的脑子里生根了,
那些银行大股东和FED就更可以更深度地互相狼狈为奸了。 - Re: Who cares if Wall Street 'talent' leaves?posted on 10/23/2009
从奥主席到FED主席到财政部长,他们一直在做两件事,一件是赶快救那些银行大股
东们,若那些银行倒掉了,联邦政府就无法运作了。另一件事就是演戏,演给轻信
的老百姓看,多数老百姓都是轻信的。 - posted on 10/23/2009
My sentiment exactly. Good riddance. Let them millionaire paupers begging for food for a change. ;-)
Besides, it's not like other employers are clamoring for their services other than the inbreeding Wall Street.
zt wrote:
Who cares if Wall Street 'talent' leaves?
If lower pay lures some of Wall Street's finest away, so be it. It's not as if the best and brightest were doing a good job to begin with.
By Colin Barr, senior writer
October 23, 2009: 10:13 AM ET
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