Here is Barry Ritholtz talking about the wonderful financial model that fuels those billion dollar bonuses at Goldman Sachs: you get paid to start a fire, and you get paid to put put the fire. The Wall Street Banker as arsonist/fireman taking home the bacon for a hard day's work...
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
About Me
- RYviewpoint
- An over-the-hill but under-the-cover guy waiting by the highway of life to see what random deliveries fate has for me...
Feedjit
Blog Archive
-
▼
2009
(1526)
-
▼
December
(105)
- Ringing Out the Old Year
- Global Warming Seen Through Y2K
- Thoughts for the New Year
- Security Forces Mobilize to the Threat
- How Not to Run a Research Program
- How to Handle Wall Street
- Stiglitz on the Economy
- How to Buy the Government You Want
- The Way the World Works
- How Far the Mighty Have Fallen
- Dowd Takes Down Obama
- Krugman on Death and Taxes
- The Tricks of Mother Nature
- 'Civilized' Iran
- Good News from Energy
- Carl Zimmer Lectures on Flu
- Security Theatre
- Why Obama is Failing
- Incompetence in Obama's Administration
- The Shabby Degradation of American Science
- View from the Top, Republican Version
- Health Care in America: A History
- Person of the Year
- Death Panels
- Mad Dog Dean Baker again Barking Up a Tree
- Security Theatre and the Unwillingness to Admit Error
- Iran in Turmoil
- Krugman on the Decade Just Ending
- A Fall in GDP in the Last Half of 2010?
- Some Wisdom to Help Understand the Past Year
- US Government Policy
- New Book by Cohen and DeLong
- Finally, Republican Hypocrisy is Noted
- The US Tentatively Joins the 21st Century
- The Changing Sun
- Documenting Corruption
- Projecting the Future
- AIG
- Wall Street: The Vampire Culture
- Devolution
- The United States Joins The Modern World
- Police with Too Much Free Time
- Whodunnit
- How the Big and Important Differ from Me
- Fox News on Global Warming
- Dysfunctional Government
- Gregory Clark's "A Farewell to Alms"
- Friedman Shows Himself to be a Fanatic
- Bush Playing Sheriff
- The United States, a Failed State?
- The Tragedy of Ben Bernanke
- US Policy Disconnect
- Optical Illusion
- A Reasonable View on "Global Warming"
- The New Copyright Laws
- Critique of the Head of the IPCC
- Green Shoots via Daniel Gross
- The Idiocy of Copyright Law
- It's The Economy Stupid
- A Serious Scientific View of Climate Change
- Scientific Fraud in Climate Data
- Maureen Dowd, the Historian
- Is This the Future?
- Hypocrisy in High Places
- A New American Revolution?
- Krugman Looks at "Reform"
- CBS Evening News Carries Propaganda
- Obama's "Transparency" in Government
- Taibbi on Obama's Economy
- Fraudulent Weather Data
- The Depth of Suffering
- The "Science" of Authority
- A Debate?
- How to Read the Tea Leaves
- US Cuts Off Nose to Save Money for Botox
- Clouds & Climate Change
- Global Warming Verified (for large cities)
- Another Obama Milestone
- Kevin Drum Exposes the Real Ben Bernanke
- The Political Process
- The Christmas 'Spirit'
- Finding a Middle Way
- Pot Calls the Kettle Black
- Climate Hypocrisy
- Bubble Magic
- Understanding the Firght Over Climate Data
- US Employment/Unemployment
- Why Obama's Job Summit is Too Little Too Late
- The Mantra of the 1980s Right
- Another Term for Bernanke as Head of the Federal R...
- Orhan Pamuk's "Istanbul"
- The Joys of Evil Governments
- A Climate Skeptics Handbook
- The CBC Unleashes Rex Murphy on 'Climate Science'
- Get a Harvard Education
- Quantum Physics for the Masses
- An Honest Comment from the Right
- The Logic of War
- The Bush/Obama Doctrine
- The Ugly Reality
-
▼
December
(105)
2 comments:
I actually got a bonus check this year.... Well, its more like a tip but not calculated on a percentage of profit. I kind of feel bad that my employer felt obligated to write bonus checks, but I am glad to have a little extra cash (more bonus check than ever, but still under $1000). I am very thankful for this, but I still feel that much more than can be realized has been taken from the American people even if these people didn't get any bonuses. WE have been taken for a ride with no windows and no refreshments but with a price and no way off. The ultimate con has been played on us and we didn't have a chance.
Thomas: you "bonus" and the Wall Street "bonus" only share the same spelling. They have completely different meanings. Even the "average" Wall Street employee takes home a bonus of around $100,000. Anybody in management takes home millions. Anybody in the top 5% are taking home tens of millions. And the top dogs can take home billion dollar "bonuses". What they got and what you got are about as related as elephants and radishes.
I'm pissed at Wall Street, Bush, and Obama because I got clobbered. I retired in early 2007 and was an innocent fool who didn't expect this catastrophe. I stupidly believed the "Stocks for the Long Run" blather in Jeremy Siegel's book. I had been hosed in the 2000-2003 recession and figured that was it for my lifetime and I could relax and enjoy retirement because that kind of catastrophe couldn't happen twice. Nope. It didn't. Something worse happened!
I got 40% of my savings wiped out in that crash thanks to the "smart money" on Wall Street playing with "risk" and setting the whole system up with bets on top of bets.
The only thing saving me from living out the rest of my life eating cat food is an inheritance from my parents who died late last year and from selling my house in a big urban area and buying a comparable house way, way out in the boonies where I bought something for less than 1/3 what I sold my previous house for.
But again I'm faced with how to manage my retirement since I have no company pension and my government pension is just over $500/month. I haven't put my savings into housing since I think that is in a bubble in Canada, so I've been forced to put most of my savings back into financial investments (some term deposits in a credit union, some in bonds, and some in stock). I pray every night that the slicksters of Wall Street don't fleece me yet again before I die. I can't afford another 40% haircut.
What's saving me is that I have always lived very cheaply. I managed to save about a third of my salary every year for over 35 years of working. So my nestegg was more than adequate until Wall Street crashed the economy and sheared me like a sheep.
This isn't the "golden years" I expected. I will survive, but I will be bitter for the rest of my days.
Post a Comment