Decyferon Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 Jesus Christ, I just turned on the news and they have reported a profit over the quarter of 3.2 Billion and have put aside 17 Billion into a bonus pot. Is it just me or is that completely fucked up? They were bailed out by the government and they have now benefited from their competitors going bust and people across the US and the rest of the world are still suffering the recession and losing homes etc. and they have the audacity to pay their staff bonuses, it isn't like they have done a good job. If I lived in the US I would be furious about this and would be in the mood for torching their offices, greedy bastards benefitting from the situation they helped create. They shouldn't be paying bonuses to their staff they should be paying dividends to the US citizens who's taxes stopped them all from losing their jobs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Telo Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 But hey.. Apparently the bail out worked. haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KITTENS Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 I have given up on this country. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelofdeath Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 blame the bail out. they shouldnt of been bailed out. it was the governments fault for bailing them out and continuing the charade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shai Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 Well, there's this little thing called "divestment". It's a little time consuming but anyone can do it. One way to do it is to do some research and see if your bank does business with Goldman Sachs. If they do, withdraw your money and close your account and tell them that you don't want to have anything to do with a bank that does business with Goldman Sachs then go open an account at your local credit union. If you have investments, do the same thing...it will take some work if you don't have a broker or someone handling your financial affairs, though. Make sure to tell your bank/broker why you're doing this, and that you plan to tell everyone you know to follow suit. Realistically, it probably won't make a huge difference but financial institutions hate to lose money for any reason about as much as bad press. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Decyferon Posted October 15, 2009 Author Share Posted October 15, 2009 that would be a great idea, I am in the process of looking at the local Credit union here (not lived here long so am still getting things organised) Don't know if I can stop using my bank though, sadly my new job is working for a bank (just customer service shit) and have to have an account with that bank to have my wages paid into but as soon as those wages are in the account I can take them out and put them in the credit union account. I know with my bitching about banks and now having to work for one is a bit shit but hey beggars cant be choosers and it isn't like I will have anything to do with investments!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelofdeath Posted October 15, 2009 Share Posted October 15, 2009 its a shame that govts and their inflation have just about made it mandatory for people who are investing for their retirements to invest in the stock market. used to be you could stack up cash, but this pretty impossible to retire on, you lose money with cash. i dont have any business speculating the stock market... then again... if i didnt have to pay the penalty for early cash out, i'd cash out my IRA and put into gold coins or ammunition. i hate banks more and more everyday. shai makes a good point. in theory this could work. gun owners attempted this technique with citicards about a year ago because of an anti gun stance, but of course it didnt do anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christo-f Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 Didn't Hoover try not bailing companies and people out and that resulted in the Great Depression..., which we avoided this time around? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shai Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 What's this "we" shit? Things are far from sweet here right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelofdeath Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 FDR's policies were nothing more than hoovers market intervention on steroids. interestingly, you'll find out if you research it that FDR ran on a platform of free markets and sound money when running and sort of criticized hoover as a commie more or less.. then FDR flipped the script and took on more power than any president in history until that time. the reason why the great depression lasted as long as it did, is because of the same policies government is doing now... bail outs, market interventions, price fixing, spending, printing money, etc. this prolongs the depression. there nearly just as bad a down turn after ww1, but you never hear about it, because the government did nothing, allowed the bad assets and markets to clear and the depression went away quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the.crooked Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 AOD, I have a question for you, what makes you think humans are capable of large scale rational action? A lot of the ideals you speak of are under the assumption that people, given full information and ability to act freely, will do what is best for them. This is shown, scientifically, to not be the standard. Humans are pretty stupid. We don't show good decision making patterns, we typically are not too altruistic, we are bad at handling large scale variables, and we aren't very good at making decisions in groups. What makes you think that markets based on free human interaction would stabilize and bring themselves about? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the.crooked Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 That's just more geared towards your general hands off perspective on markets and policy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercer Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 Without any profit there would be no tax dollars being put back into the Treasury. Goldman Sachs is actually a stand up company known around here for it's huge end of year employee bonuses. From what I've heard some employee's can get almost an entire years salary in an end of year bonus, not just the VIP's either. To me hearing about this profit and bonuses instead of layoff's and losses is great news. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christo-f Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 What's this "we" shit? Things are far from sweet here right now. Sure, but what is happening now is hardly comparable to the great depression no matter what country you're in. As for the other replies, I have not time to read them now but I will come back soon and continue to discuss. I'm only reading in to the causes of the GD and FDRs New Deal now so I will probably be asking more questions than being a constructive discusser. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLU Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 YES WE CAN! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smart Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 Here's the argument, not sure if I agree but I kinda see their point. All the investment companies, even those that didn't recieve bailout funds, provide bonuses. It's a fundamental part of the pay structure. GS (et al) argue that if they are restricted from providing bonuses they will be hamstringed and will lose their 'talent'. On a 9-5 level they are saying that if Wal-Mart was suddenly forced to cut employee wages in half then everyone would quit and the company would fail. That much seems obvious and seems to bolster GS's case. The thing is, these bonuses could be regulated across the board or done away with and replaced by large salary increases but it's this very act of regulation that the Republicans object to claiming the Govt. would be socializing the markets or hindering free operation of private business that keeps the reforms from moving forward. Political catch-22. I didn't actually see it on FoxNews but I read in the papers how, after 9 months of blaming Obama for the failing economy, the moment the Dow hit 10K again Fox asked "Is this the beginning of the Bush recovery?"... I'll just leave that out there for you to decide. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Decyferon Posted October 17, 2009 Author Share Posted October 17, 2009 Yea I can kind of see their point with the bonuses and losing staff, however if it was regulated across the board that these bonuses were not allowed until all the bailout money had been paid back, because it is OUR money that is supporting these companies. They wouldn't lose staff because it isn't like the bankers would have an alternative company to go to because all the banks would be forced to return the bailout money before making these huge bonuses. I'm not saying they shouldn't get some bonus because it is part of their wage structure it is the sheer volume that some of the bonuses amount to. In every company I have worked for you get bonuses for delivering results, these banks have not delivered results that, in my opinion, are worthy of these bonuses. I wouldn't get paid a bonus if the work I had done had caused the company to almost go broke. It isn't really the companies faults tho, it should have been a requirement of the bailout that they had to pay the money back before they could return to trading as usual. Why do they get bonuses, when we as the people that bailed them out don't get paid dividends on our investments into their companies? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smart Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 Goldman Sachs paid off their loan back in June. So did JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, AmEx and a few more... so? Results delivered? Bonuses deserved? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boner9000 Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 As usual, Smart pinned down the counter argument. Investment banks and Goldman in particular have a long history of high compensation (recently about 50% of REVENUES) and they claim it is to attract the best and brightest... hard to believe in the past year, but it's true. Regulation will probably attempt to shift pay incentives over a longer term, which will be a challenge since Ibankers have relatively few years of usefulness in the industry... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Decyferon Posted October 17, 2009 Author Share Posted October 17, 2009 ah shit I didn't know they had paid it back yet, my bad. Typical UK banks dragging their feet on their paybacks 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILOTSMYBRAIN Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 http://www.vdare.com/roberts/091015_economy.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boner9000 Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 Not to throw gas on the fire, but those firms also borrowed heavily from fed programs and were helped by an ultra low interest rate. Borrowing from the treasury is a whole nother can of worms compared to the fed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelofdeath Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 ^^^ the FED is not to blame in any of this! blasphemy! ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christo-f Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 I'm drunk, but I kind of get the feeling after reading you guys, reading a few books and stuff and a few years or 9-5 that there really needs to be a simple steatemtn along with a timeline to match that we cal=n all work from. A basic net sum of irrefutable fact is the base line from where we work from. We all acome at every fucking topic here from a prefabbed conclusion, which means that ah fuck it; I am god. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Decyferon Posted October 17, 2009 Author Share Posted October 17, 2009 haha I love reading people's drunken statements, makes me wish I still drank. I kinda wish more people contributed to Crossfire only seems to be about 10 of us and we can rarely ever agree on a thing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercer Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 I still don't see the problem here, they got bailed out, we kept a powerhouse financial institution afloat that employs thousands in good paying jobs, they paid what they had to back, then turned a profit. Sounds like a win to me, hard working people kept their good paying jobs. If there is a downside to them pulling through this please explain to me what it is. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shai Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 It's not so much that they pulled through it, it's that they helped precipitate it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Decyferon Posted October 17, 2009 Author Share Posted October 17, 2009 its like rewarding people for fucking up, they helped get into the situation and hardly anytime later they are getting congratulated and pats on the backs and fat bonuses like everything is forgotten when so many people around the world are suffering from the impact of the banks screw ups Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boner9000 Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 It's the moral hazard concept. There is a risk that bailing out these companies will lead to them taking huge risks again and relying on uncle sam to foot the bill should they go bust, again. I doubt this will be the case in the near term, but ten years down the line, who knows? Some sort of regulation will get passed soon, but eventually some politicians will want it repealed/scaled back, and then we get the vicious cycle. I really wonder if the US will reach the levels of wealth that we had in the first half of this decade... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercer Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 It just seems like kind of a stretch to say they had a hand in the housing collapse that spiraled into our recent financial crisis. The nature of their business ties them to just about every major corporation on the planet. The bulk of their business actually prevents a lot of investment fraud by auditing a company's investment potential and actual assets. Most of the people working for Sacks that you might be able to stretch logic and say they were at fault got fired. More importantly, many others who had absolutely nothing to do with any of this got cut loose as well last year. Made a huge impact on NYC's economy and I know a couple people still looking for jobs because of it. Not to mention the guy selling Gyro's outside the buildings who had to close up shop. The lady doing someones nails that lost too much business when her customers got laid off. It isn't just here, they conduct business globally and some of the money in those so called "ridiculous bonuses" directly effect your own local economy's. I feel it's better off in a bonus than being wasted by the government on their usual bullshit. There are people who have been working hard their entire lives. When you were in high school playing hide the sausage with the ho's, they were at home studying. When you were out partying and getting fucked up after graduation, they were excelling in Ivy League Schools. I could not imagine working that hard and missing out on hide the sausage and drugs, but there are people who do. Those are the kinds of people that are hard to come by as an employer. Being known for a passing out a huge end of year bonus to employee's helps get those kinds of people to work at your company. Thus making your company better off. I could understand the hate if it were directed at the individual fucktards who borrowed more money than they could afford to pay back, or a predatory lending firm. If it were up to me they should be the ones paying us back. But trying to blame Sacks is like one of those dumb ass angry black dudes who fails at life and blames and hates all white people because they may be a distant relative of former slave owner who profited at one time 3 or 4 generations ago. If it wasn't for Sacks pulling a profit, we would all be worse off in the long run regardless of any perceived shortcoming you may find in that company. They take risks, make profit and employee people like any good company should. I'm glad they got bailed out and stayed in business, I'm even happier that things are going well for them now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.