The WSJ’s Sue Craig reported this evening that Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein is taking a mere $9 million bonus for 2009, in all stock and no cash.
This comes after a year in which the Wall Street firm reported massive profits and compares with the $70 million in compensation that Blankfein collected for 2007.
It seemed likely that Blankfein was going to take a small bonus given all the criticism that Goldman has faced for its role in the financial crisis and the fact that many of its profits have been earned through government intervention in the capital markets. In addition, Goldman’s rank and file employees have had to take smaller bonuses, as the company reduces its overall compensation ratios to the lowest levels since Goldman went public.
Still, $9 million seems perfectly calibrated: Not large enough to be dubbed a “double digit” bonus. But not so small as to seem that Blankfein capitulated completely to political pressures.
Consider that Blankfein’s bonus is nearly half that of JPMorgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon . It’s also smaller than far less-well known figures in finance. Would you believe that Blankfein is now officially paid less than the CEO of Jefferies, Richard Handler, who is expected to earn a $12 million bonus in cash and stock.
Outrageous…how is the man suppose to live on that?
Yep, and the Repuglicans are expanding their base: no long JUST the party of NO. Now they are actively protecting Wallstreet against any reform efforts.
And yet likely they will gain seats in 2010. Heh, heh. Silly Hoomans.
If Goldman Sachs had not been bailed out by a government that wanted a piece of the action there would be no taxpayer funded bonus.
Funny how people will go crazy over 9 million when trillions are being looted from the treasury as well as a prosperous future by Obama and his merry band of thieves.
The funny part is I don’t blame Obama because he is doing what all despots do. The people are to blame for letting him get away with it.
Sometimes you get exactly what you deserve.
They’re loose canons in a storm. You either tie ’em down or throw ’em overboard.
The President of the most powerful country in the world (cough) has a salary of $400,000/year.
Blankfein’s compensation, over $80 million… more than 200 times the presidents salary.
Salary for a soldier to maintain Blankfein’s freedom… less than 1/40,000th of Blankfein’s compensation.
Value placed on the life of a soldier killed in active duty… $100,000… about 2 hrs pay for Blankfein.
Your chances of being a “Blankfein”… .00001% … essentially zero.
Blankfein’s value to America… zero. If he died right now, the USA would continue on as if nothing happened.
Comparable value attributed to the President of the USA… 4 dead American soldiers.
American’s love of unfettered capitalism… priceless
It gets worse. The Conservative majority of the Supreme Court has ruled to allow UNLIMITED amount of money to flow from corporations to buy off members of Congress. It is truly unbelievable.
A simple check from Exxon or Merck will easily drown the voices of ten’s of the thousands of citizens.
That is what Republicans stand for. The beauty is that they don’t contest that. If there is one single example of corporations controlling government with Republican backing, this is it.
Well, I’m glad to see that wingnuts like Dr Dootypants are now supporting Obama’s initiative to TAX THE EXCESS COMPENSTATION of bailed out executives who’s companies took TARP.
Its a small step, but progress none the less.
Skeptic has it right – and yet the brainwashed right wing refuse to see what is so obvious to anyone with a brain, not to mention an open mind.
Is it so hard to think for yourself and make your decisions based on facts, or are you afraid to admit (even to yourself) you might have been wrong? Either way, it is nothing to be proud of.
Think of it this way – When you lose your job – when your COBRA expires(a government mandated benefit, btw) – when you lose your home because your job went to China, permanently – when a catastrophic illness hits your family – when your relatives can’t afford to help you any more,
YOU WILL CHANGE YOUR TUNE!
Have the courage to admit it, or is that too much actual thinking for you?
#6-boobo-now supporting Obama’s initiative to TAX THE EXCESS COMPENSTATION of bailed out executives who’s companies took TARP.
Not exactly. I’m for those executives that took TARP money to be placed in front of the business end of a firing squad for being stupid of enough to get in bed with government.
They sold our freedom cheap by opening the door to the age of government.
Why is Goldman so successful? Read this article in NY Times about Goldman playing hardball with AIG which helped push AIG over the edge. Though Goldman denies responsibility.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/business/07goldman.html?hp
@ #4 Did you not read the article? “the fact that many of its profits have been earned through government intervention in the capital markets”
People are confused and rightly so. They think capitalism is bad. The fact is, capitalism is necessary. Would you rather buy what you want when you want or wait in line for rations? The former is capitalism, the latter is government intervention. What we have now is corporatism. Government has retarded the natural process of capitalism.
#5 This has happened since forever. Now it’s just more blatant. It’s all part of the, “hey, now that it’s transparant, it’s okay” rhetoric the Obama administration has put into play. If you didn’t have government, there wouldn’t be a government there for some corporation to take control of.
#6 Yeah, that’s great. Politicians are worthless. They’d be getting paid zero if it weren’t for mass extortion we call taxes. And corporations who take bail outs are even worse. They deserve to sleep in the bed they made. This is not progress, this is more of the same.
#8 You hit it right on the head. Government taxes business. So, business buys government officials to pass laws to lessen tax burden on business. Then government official changes and hikes taxes on aforementioned business. It’s a sickening cycle, but be sure to note, it all starts with thugs in government.
#2 Dr Dodd said,
“Funny how people will go crazy over 9 million when trillions are being looted from the treasury”
Yea, it’s only 9 mil so why freak out? If we keep silent, maybe I can get a bonus for doing a crappy job too. Wouldn’t want anyone to complain then either.
Next time someone steals your car, we’ll just remind you of the trillions being looted from the treasury to help you keep things in perspective. That way you’ll remember how silly it is to complain about such peanuts and feel better, I’m sure.
Oh yea Dodd, almost forgot. Great Fox News talking point.
#2 Dr Dodd said,
“Funny how people will go crazy over 9 million when trillions are being looted from the treasury”
9 million to someone who held the country (and the world, let’s be honest) hostage and did the looting. I can’t believe you’re that religious that you forgot how to think for yourself.
The thing that burns me up about AIG beyond the fact that they compromised the financial security of all the people who have their retirement funds with them, is the fact that they sold debt insurance to foreign banks. The U.S. funds that went into AIG helped them make good on foreign bank policies. Our tax money bailed out banks around the world when the national governments in those respective countries declined to offer cash to bail out their own banks precisely because they knew that our tax payers would do it for them via AIG. We not only bailed out foreign banks but we did it at 100 cents on the dollar, which was patently stupid.
>> Dr Dodd said, on February 6th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
>> Funny how people will go crazy over 9 million when trillions are being looted from the treasury as well as a prosperous future by Obama and his merry band of thieves.
Believe it or not, I actually agree with you.
However, this is symbolic of the widespread, wholesale looting of the American government by rich insiders.
I’m multitasking. On one of my browser tabs I have Sarah Palin speaking live at the tea party. She says one of the problems we have in fixing our economy is that our leaders in Congress need to ask “the man upstairs” for guidance. The tea party host responded, “Amen.”
Sheesh. I thought we elected a bunch of lawyers because they should know law and economics, not about falling on their knees. This kind of stuff plays well with the kind of cretins that are willing to pay 500 bucks to listen to someone with no experience in economics give comments on economics.
Re: BmoreBadBoy… “What we have now is corporatism. Government has retarded the natural process of capitalism.”
Please explain what you mean by that statement? … are corporations not privately owned? … and what in tarnation is the “natural process” of capitalism?
It’s really too bad that all this partisan bullshit gets in the way of bringing justice to the treason Bush, Barny frank, the bankers, and to a point Obama committed stealing trillions.
We really do deserve it, we’re to fucking politically correct to call a spade a spade.
You idjits can argue politics all you want. But I keep thinking of the human misery. I just hope his kids don’t go hungry.
#17 gladly. A corporation is an entity that the government created to protect the owners of companies from liability. That’s why corporations are treated as individuals in the eyes of the law. If a company goes down in flames or is sued, the owners aren’t held responsible for its debts, frauds, etc. Which is why a company like AIG can take the risks it did. If the owners of AIG had to pay back all those retirement funds for faulty accounting and trade practices, without reliance on government protection from law suits and bailout money, do you think they would’ve practiced naked default swaps in the first place?
What I mean by the natural process of capitalism is the process in which one person wants something and another person has it, they perform a trade, without interference from an unwanted 3rd party, in this case, government. Corporations are privately owned, but are regulated by the government. On first glance, you might think that’s a great idea. This protects the consumer. In an ideal world, this would be true. Unfortunately, those regulations are created by human beings that can be bought by the very same corporations they are regulating! So, for example, if you’re a senator running for re-election and you’re running out of tv ad money, and Corporation X throws millions of dollars your way, don’t you think you’d be willing to vote aye for a piece of legislation buried in a bill 1000 pages long to scratch their back?
The free market protects the consumer better than legislation. If you don’t like what a company is doing, stop patronizing it. The company loses business and if it doesn’t correct the problem soon it will go out of business. If you don’t like (or don’t even know) all the regulations being voted for by your senator, you can wait 6 years to try to vote him out, but as long as he gets more advertising money from that corporation, most people will forget his voting record by then and will be persuaded by his pretty little TV ads.
When the second crash occurs later this year, I hope it will inspire a “vote them ALL out” campaign. Anyone who voted for the bailouts and, later, the toothless financial “reform” legislation should be voted out of office _unless_ they actively investigate and prosecute the perps of the _massive_ fraud that took place in the US financial system over the last ten years.
Oh, wait… I’m dreaming. That would require an _informed_ populace. So, when the second crash occurs, we’ll just get screwed again…
>> Winston said, on February 6th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
>> When the second crash occurs later this year, I hope it will inspire a “vote them ALL out” campaign.
This will just make things worse.
The dumbest voters in the worst states with the most corrupt senators will just keep their guys in office in response to some emotional appeal — “save the unborn” or “the Mexicans are invading” or “the gays are threatening your marriage” or “the terrorists will kill you”
So who gets voted out? The better of the bunch leaving the worst.
Time to SOAK THE RICH !!! Elvis paid 91% during the “Golden Fifties”, so should these SCUM !!!
#20, you’ve described the flaws of unfettered capitalism. The US has a system of capitalism without morals or limits.
“the natural process of capitalism is the process in which one person wants something and another person has it, they perform a trade, without interference from an unwanted 3rd party, in this case, government. ”
Not true. The “natural” process of capitalism moves toward power and corruption… without fail. The government was not an unwanted 3rd party. They were a necessary and wanted 3rd party in an unfortunate situation where capitalism went awry. That now has to be fixed by regulations, so that it never happens again. Where we disagree is that free enterprise has to be regulated in ways that prevent an entity from having more power and corruption than the government. You are being way too unrealistic in suggesting that we simply stop buying a product when that happens. Have you stopped buying gas yet?
With their stock holding I wonder what his real income was? In 2008 many CEOs had huge negative incomes.
#25 “In 2008 many CEOs had huge negative incomes.”
I think you meant to say their net worth was negatively impacted. To have a negative income the CEO would have had to pay money to his employer to retain his job. The closest to that situation I know of is several CEOs working for a salary of a $1 for the year.
Hey Cap’n: It may only be a dollar but, by the end of the year, many of them were worth it, too!
#24 Ever watch “Who killed the electric car?” Who knows what we’d be driving without the intervention of government on behalf of big oil? When on earth have we ever had unfettered capitalism? Before our lovely government taxed us, the British taxed us. Remember the Boston Tea Party? Our so called revolution was merely substituting one set of slave masters from far away with another much more local. Government has always been around in one form or another to screw things up for the majority of the populace who would like to be left alone and interact with each other on a consensual basis. Power corrupts, yes. But power from unadulterated capitalism comes from serving your customers. If you don’t do that in the first place, you’ll never grow as a business. Power from government is gained and maintained from extortion and the capitulation from the masses. Corporatism is the evil two-headed monster that has grown from big business getting into bed with big government. And every now and then one head bites the other one, but most of the time, it just stomps on the rest of us. Try being a true skeptic and question government as a whole, instead of getting caught up in the red team vs. blue team paradigm. Oh, and how has regulations fixed capitalism thus far? How many of them are on the books? How is that working out? And your statement: “Where we disagree is that free enterprise has to be regulated in ways that prevent an entity from having more power and corruption than the government.” is very telling. So I guess you’ve come to terms with corruption from the government and will be happy as long as corporations are less corrupt than government? (Now where’s my pet peeve of the day jingle?)
Re#28, When I said, “Where we disagree is that free enterprise has to be regulated in ways that prevent an entity from having more power and corruption than the government.”, I was saying so with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek.
Large organizations of any kind breed corruption… from religions to government. Everything has gotten out of hand. A 9 million dollar bonus to one man in an irresponsible, economically threatening company, illustrates that perfectly. The fairy tale kind of capitalism you envision can’t possibly exist on this earth unless you can change the nature of mankind first. Rules are necessary. Government is necessary. Human nature is predictable. There is a balance between all those things that has allowed us to prosper. What we have to do now is get things back in balance, toned down and cleaned up.
The salary of one of the Joint Chiefs (4 star general, admiral, etc) is $180,000 a year.
Their job is to run the military and ensure the defense of the entire nation.
So exactly why does a Goldman CEO get a $9,000,000 bonus?