NEW YORK — Even on Wall Street, the land of six- and seven-figure incomes, jaws dropped at the news Tuesday: After all that federal aid, a resurgent Goldman Sachs is on course to distribute bonuses that could rival the record paydays of the heady bull-market years.
Goldman posted the richest quarterly profit in its 140-year history and, to the envy of its rivals, announced it had earmarked $11.4 billion so far this year to compensate its workers. At that rate, Goldman workers could, on average, earn roughly $770,000 each this year — or nearly what they did at the height of the boom.
Senior Goldman executives and bankers would be paid considerably more. Only three years ago, Goldman paid more than 50 employees above $20 million each. In 2007, CEO Lloyd Blankfein collected one of the biggest bonuses in corporate history. The latest headline results — $3.44 billion in profit during its second quarter — were powered by earnings from the bank’s secretive trading operations and exceeded even the most optimistic predictions. But Goldman’s good fortune, coming only a month after the bank repaid billions of bailout dollars, raises questions for Washington, D.C., policymakers.
The bank holding company, analysts warned, is embracing financial risks that many of its competitors are unable or unwilling to take. While Goldman managed those risks this time, its strategy could backfire if the markets turn against it. “I find this disconcerting,” said Lucian A. Bebchuk, a Harvard law professor. “My main concern is that it seems to be a return to some of the flawed short-term compensation structures that played an important role in the run-up to the financial crisis.”
Even inside Goldman, executives acknowledged that the bank’s stunning results, coming during a painful recession, presents something of a PR challenge. “We are cognizant of it,” said David Viniar, Goldman’s chief financial officer. “We understand that we are living in a very uncertain world where a lot of people are out of work.”
Excuse me, but where is our bonus? Who bailed these idiots out? Who makes this kind of money while failing at their profession. CRIPES!!!!!
Yeah … the profit is from selling the lion’s share of the $1T in treasury bills. I find it rather sickening, personally.
Since that bull is not far from me at the moment, I have to point out the shiny balls. Bronze gets shiny where people touch it a lot. For some reason that I will never ever figure out, it is a major tourist thing for people to photograph themselves or friends holding the bull’s balls.
Please do NOT try to explain this to me. I don’t want to know. As long as the bull is consenting, …
Who bailed these idiots out?
Didn’t Goldman return the bailout bucks or at least promise to? That’s not the sickening part to me, though it would be if they keep the bucks.
Have they paid off their bailout?
Why do I feel like the customers of this fine organization are fools?
Why do I feel like Congress is run by a bunch of fools elected by we the people who are being royally shafted by them?
I don’t feel real smart either.
#2, Goldman paid back the $10 billion but they got to keep the $12.9 billion handed to them by the Treasury through AIG. If the government hadn’t bailed out AIG (really, Goldman), this $3.44 billion dollar profit would have been a 9.46 billion dollar loss.
It’s only dollars
Making a profit/bonus is good.
Right?
They would not have done this if Obama’s guys were not former G-S guys.Buy CDs and stay out of the market it is a fools game.
even in the best of times, the “financial activity” of Goldman Sachs and other investment houses and those banks engaged in “sophisticated financial instruments” is all parasitic on the real economic activity of an economy. IE–what they do could be outlawed with little to no effect on the underlying activities. Just different people closer to the transaction making more money as its not siphoned off by these hucksters.
But, its considered “smart” to be these guys. You do realize just who thinks this is “smart” and keeps it from being illegal?
Even inside Goldman, executives acknowledged that the bank’s stunning results, coming during a painful recession, presents something of a PR challenge. “We are cognizant of it,” said David Viniar, Goldman’s chief financial officer. “We understand that we are living in a very uncertain world where a lot of people are out of work.”
Plainly put, they don’t give a flying fuck what anyone thinks.
#9. And yet we still do not have the leadership to put a stop to the thievery.
These guys are really pushing their luck.
#9–Fusion==you actually are being too kind. In harder fact, the knowledge that the general tax payer is outraged at this governmental transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich only makes them think they are more privileged, smarter, better than, the rest of us.
Its like God favoring his chosen ones by making them rich for their “will” to do so. You just know the LIEBERTARIANS on this blog are responding right now because they are too busy pleasuring themselves imagining themselves as part of this group.
As stated, in the main, in a rational society, the activities of GS would be illegal.
Maybe we just need to just pay off the money we owe to these places and boycott them, never do business with banks ever again. Really, most people don’t really need banks for anything but convenience. F*ck em…..
Makes perfect sense to me.
From a business perspective, now that Goldman-Sachs can count on perpetual government bail-outs, why bother with concerns about long-term profitability?
Next, look for GM to announce huge bonuses to it’s executives.
#15, FTW.
#12, Bobbo, a Master of the Universe himself,
You just know the LIEBERTARIANS on this blog are responding right now because they are too busy pleasuring themselves imagining themselves as part of this group.
You are too kind to them. This reminds me of a story:
A four y/o goes up to his father and asks
“Daddy, can I have a tricycle?”
“Can your dick reach your ass?”
The little tyke reaches down and checks. “No”.
“Come on back when it does.
When the little grasper turns seven he again approaches his father, this time to ask for a bicycle.
“Can your dick reach your ass?” the father inquires.
“Uumm, no.”
Come on back when it can.”
Around age eleven, the rangy kid asks his father for a skateboard.
“Can your dick reach your ass?” his father wanted to know.
“uuu, no,” the disappointed son replies.
“Come on back when it does”.
After a few more years the kid is now turning 17 and with new license in hand asks his father for a used car.
“Can your dick reach your ass?” the aging yet wise father questions.
“Not quite.” The young man answered almost proudly.
“Come on back when it does.”
A few years later the son has grown and again approaches his father.
“Dad, could you help pay for my wedding to Suzy?”
“Can your dick reach your ass?” the father asks without moving his newspaper.
“YES!!!” The jubilant son replies.
“Then go fuck yourself.”
This is a bizarre money triangle going on.
When Bush bailed out AIG after letting Lehman Brothers collapse, was the AIG connection to Goldman Sachs looked into?
It may take years to unravel this puzzle.
I don’t think some of the posters on this blog have any idea what a Libertarian is. If they did, they wouldn’t be throwing the word around so awkwardly as if they really understood what it means.
Libertarians opposed the bailouts, just as they oppose all forms of welfare, regardless of whether it is intended to help downtrodden individuals or huge corporations. Libertarians believe in the separation of church and state, as well as the separation of business and state. When businesses buy their own politicians, the people are bound to suffer. Big business bought congress decades ago, lobbied them to pass laws making all their financial shenanigans legal, and now the taxpayers are on the hook for their mistakes.
Any institution that is “too big to fail” is probably too big to exist. Libertarians say go ahead and let them fail. Capitalism punishes failure and rewards success. Good capitalists accept it.
You’re missing the point:
What are all these guys doing with the money?
Spend it on Hookers and and parties and new cars and stuff…
Bonus is good! Bonus spread the wealth!
Now, repeat 100 times.
Change you can believe in!
as a taxpayer and lender in this bailout i want MY BONUS FIRST, if there is anything left maybe we can bay goldman sacks and loots minimum wage….
Fusion==thank you for reading thru my typo’s and seeing the point I was trying to make that my missed negative failed to make. I think Dad’s should held kiddies buy tricycles==not so much the other stuff, but certainly tricycles–that Dad was one hard ass, funny, but one hard ass.
#20–Anarchrist==stick around. You will see the LIEBERTARIANS on this blog posting like complete inbred idiots. Course, YOU don’t post far from idiocy yourself equating the downtrodden with corporations as if the two were one in the same====and that is the problem with LIBERTARIANS–they raise a philosophy above the value of human beings.
For shame.
#22, gq,
Change you can believe in!
And you can bet that if Congress instituted wage controls for the financial sector the right wing nuts would be screaming their ugly faces off.
#24, Bobbo, the genial guy,
Thank you. The father was a Liebertarian. When he is old and looking for companionship, I’m sure the son will remember.
One of my favorite songs is Harry Chapin’s Cat’s in the Cradle. He wrote it about his step son.
*
Two Liebertarians go into a bar. After a while one gets up and goes to the washroom. When he returns his fly is undone, the front of his pants are all wet, and there is toilet paper hanging from his shoe.
The second Liebertarian points it out to the first. He responds,
“I’m teaching Dick personal responsibility. He must be a Republican because he only comes out on his own around gay men.”
The moral of the story? Damned if I know but I’m glad I exercise personal responsibility for myself and am not a Republican. I also don’t use my shoe to wipe my butt.
😛
#26–Fusion==”The Father was a Liebertarian.” ===hah, hah. I missed that the first time thru. Yes, hard to distinguish a self centered asshole from a LIEBERTARIAN. Perhaps I should assume they are one in the same until some subtle philosophical point is attempted?
Also, I never did comment I noticed you took awhile to amend your spelling of LIEBERTARIAN to make it blog worthy. Glad you finally came on board. Course, Loser probably won’t respond to you anymore either. LIEBERTARIANS are like that. They can only handle low hanging fruit. Point out their solid colon impact, and they tend to look for those who are only completely gullible==ie, folks like themselves. Anarchrist seems to be of this genotype.
Perhaps we should back off to draw them out? Actually I do favor the Libertarian point of view on free speech and personal aspirations and those sorts of things. As referenced, its only when “the philosophy” starts throwing people under the bus that they become LIEBERTARIANS. Sad to see it.
#27. Give it rest bobbo, you blathering now.
Agreed. I’ve tried and tried to get this through their heads but they really don’t have a clue.
All I ever hear is, “You are a selfish bastard because you don’t want to help out the poor.”
What they mean is, “You are a selfish bastard because you gripe about paying more taxes that can be given to the poor.”
Helping out the poor should be a personal choice, not an requirement enforced by the state.
#29 was directed at #20
You knuckleheads need to quit whinin’ and get on the bus… Buy Goldman stock and start making the best of the real world.
lets see how many $20k per year wages could have been Payed for($10 per hour)
GM avg wage $750k per year.
37 people at $10 per hour, yearly.
and thats not the TOP PERSONS wages..
$11 billion??
that would be 55000 jobs at $10 per hour..
well its not enough to save the auto industry..
Anyone have a job out there, they LOST, and would like $20K for the year??