Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) today handed the keys to Wall Street's most lucrative kingdom to 94 lucky souls named "partner."
These folks are the best of the best. Perversely, the timing could not have been better since as Bloomberg News notes it is "a designation that gives them a bigger share of a bonus pool that's likely to shrink this year amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression."
It certainly is quite a time to be a partner at New York-based Goldman. Shares of the company are down 56%. Profit for the first nine months of the fiscal year was $4.44 billion, down 47% from last year. A mere $11.7 billion is available for compensation, down 32% from 2007.
These new Wall Street prince and princesses should find plenty of places eager to take their money. A host of New York City businesses ranging from Tiffany & Co. (NYSE: TIF) to the local nannies have been decimated by the tens of thousands of layoffs on Wall Street. Even the hard-working strippers who serve Wall Street clients are starting to feel pinched -- economically, according to The New York Post. As the paper's Page Six gossip column recently eloquently put it: "Wall Street's financial crisis has trickled down to Manhattan's mammary meccas."
Meanwhile, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has asked for information about executive pay from nine banks getting rescued under the Treasury Department's TARP plan. Goldman, of course, did not need to be rescued but in the eyes of politicians a bank is a bank is a bank. By naming partners now, Goldman is only showing how out of touch it is with the lives of ordinary Americans.
Goldman Sachs is giving people more reasons to hate Wall Street
Posted Oct 29th 2008 6:00PM by Jonathan Berr
Filed under: Employees, Tiffany and Co (TIF), Goldman Sachs Group (GS)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-29-2008 @ 8:20PM
Bill said...
Money is power. The only way to manage power is to fragment it by regulation. Check-out this video: http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/450.html
10-29-2008 @ 10:51PM
M. Max Muqtadir said...
I beg to disagree with you. Though I am not affiliated with Goldman Sachs, I agree that it is true that this has been extremely & direly rough for those more so on the Main Street than on Wall Street. Further, I do tend to agree with Goldman Sachs by naming the top performers as Partners. The best way to encourage growth is to recognize Performance.
In these times when it is so easy to see & hear gloom & doom - it seems there is competition as to who can show a bigger calamity, whether it is TV, radio or otherwise. In my opinion USA and the World in general, needs to be encouraged and go for bloom & boom. Encouragement and positive re-inforcement are the ways towards growth and brightness and should be further promoted.
10-30-2008 @ 1:00AM
Kent said...
As long as it's not tax payers' money that is being used to fund performance at MS, we have no business questioning their decisions. I would think the Japanese Mitsubishi UFJ Bank might, but doubt it as long as MS restructures itself back profitability. Not mentioned in this article is the sizable lay-offs at MS. MS is forever indebted to the Japanese I would think.
10-30-2008 @ 2:18AM
Mike Sanders said...
If only people would read Forbes they would realize that the rich may indeed make more money, but their cost of living is much higher, as well. In a recent special issue, the cover features a very handsome watch, from Germany. Cost: $451,000. Now if you wore a half-million dollar watches and dressed proportionately, drove a Bently and lived in a $12 million dollar home, you'd want to make a salary, which would keep you from going into debt, too. If only people would use a little common sense!
10-30-2008 @ 10:46AM
Virgil Bierschwale said...
I don't care that they pay them bonuses.
In fact, I wish I had known about the stock market when I was a young kid so that I could have made the attempt to have gotten my name on that list.
BUT, I do care if they are using the money we gave them for the bailout, in other words, if they had the money from profits to pay the bonuses, they are more then welcome to them, but do not use the money we gave you in a handout to pay bonuses..
Kind of like giving a bum 20 dollars for food and he spends it on booze...
Virgil
http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com