Wall Street Bonus Season
 

Here's an interesting historical persective from Google:

December 14, 1928 - $100M in Bonus'

December 20, 2006 - $24B in Bonus Checks

January 12, 2010 - Goldman Alone Set Aside 16.7B For Bonuses

2011 - Bonuses Cut by One Third to Donuts

Nothing like a great wad of cash in your hands to help forget the wrong doings youve inflicted onto society.My guess theyve recieved bonus money in other ways .In a system of Arbitrage Opportunities you have your conceivers,your convincers ,and your con artist (Bankers ,Politicians,Wall Street ).

100m in 1928 figure equals 1.32 billion in today's money

You do a good job, make your company money, make the stockholders happy, you get a bonus. Its called hard work and the American way. But I guess there are people who just sit on their ass and expect others to pay all their bills and do all the work....liberals.

How will I ever afford to fuel my yacht for rich person party stuff this spring in the hamptons...

Yeah the markets have been swinging like crazy, all the hedge fund guys must be loving this. I have a feeling all the Mercedes dealers around here are going to have a GREAT end to 2011.:D

Since this is a MB forum what are you going to spend your bonus money on?

If I wasn't saving to build myself a house I'd pick up a slightly used AMG SL or CL.:D:cool:

yes, the work of CEOs is much more important than the lowly serf - oops, i meant worker.

First of all, changes in CEO-to-worker pay ratios are a useful measure of growing CEO pay levels. In 1980, BusinessWeek magazine estimated that the top executives of the largest U.S. companies made 42 times the pay of factory workers. In 2010, the gap between CEO pay at S&P 500 companies and the median U.S. worker had soared to 343 times, according to the AFL-CIO’s Executive PayWatch website.

Why CEO-to-Worker Pay Ratios Matter to Investors — The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation

one is reminded of aesop, and the parable of the frogs who wanted a king.

The Frogs Desiring a King an Aesop's Fable

enjoy being a frog, my friend.

Its not hard work nor the American way, most of the people who get those huge bonuses spend a couple hours ripping people off, then go golfing the rest of the day and talk with others like themselves about how full their money towers are.

Rome was filled with greed and unbalanced wealth, and we all know what happened to that society. Lest we learn from the past. But people never do, at least not in this country. We are a very "in the moment" nation. No future outlook or observations of the past. Blind greed and complete lack of education. A society where 1% hold most of the wealth cannot function that way forever without collapse or rebellion.

Another idea people seem to never grasp is that, you don't *need* to have enormous amounts of possessions and $$. In the end, you won't be taking it with you, which shows just how meaningless it is, focus on the more important things in life. The richest country in the world should not have anyone facing poverty or starvation, yet we do. And somehow a huge part of the population manage to pretend its not there, and carry on in their self centered ways.

It seems these days that anything focused on helping those in need, balancing living standards, or looking for change, is considered socialist or "liberal". If so, perhaps conservative is just code for "selfish and greedy".

Trickle down theory is just that, only a trickle gets to those below the top 1%.

I agree! The only thing is that I believe that the companies that received government money of any quantity, should not be allowed to pay one single cent in bonuses until the government is repaid.

Love it!!!

Greed is good!!!
Free Gordon Gecko!!! :D