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I inhabit BIZZARO WORLD that is all
shake me wake me ,when its over!
Goldman to make record bonus payout
Surviving banks accused of undermining stability
* Phillip Inman
* The Observer, Sunday 21 June 2009
Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm’s 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year, sparking concern that the big investment banks which survived the credit crunch will derail financial regulation reforms.
A lack of competition and a surge in revenues from trading foreign currency, bonds and fixed-income products has sent profits at Goldman Sachs soaring, according to insiders at the firm.
Staff in London were briefed last week on the banking and securities company’s prospects and told they could look forward to bumper bonuses if, as predicted, it completed its most profitable year ever. Figures next month detailing the firm’s second-quarter earnings are expected to show a further jump in profits. Warren Buffett, who bought $5bn of the company’s shares in January, has already made a $1bn gain on his investment.
Goldman is expected to be the biggest winner in the race for revenues that, in 2006, reached £186bn across the entire industry. While this figure is expected to fall to £160bn in 2009, it will be split among a smaller number of firms.
Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank are among the European firms expected to register bumper profits, along with US banks JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley following the near collapse and government rescue of major trading houses including Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland.
In April, Goldman said it would set aside half of its £1.2bn first-quarter profit to reward staff, much of it in bonuses. It is believed to have paid 973 bankers $1m or more last year, while this year’s payouts are on track to be the highest for most of the bank’s 28,000 staff, including about 5,400 in London.
Critics of the bonus culture in the City said the dominance of a few risk-taking investment banks is undermining the efforts of regulators to stabilise the financial system.
Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman, said: "The investment banks more than any other institutions created the culture of excessive leverage, excessive risk and excessive bonuses that led to the downfall of the financial system. Now they are cashing in and the same bonus culture has returned. The result must be that we are being pushed to the edge of another crash."
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oopsie….(snip)
Obama’s False Financial Reform
By William Greider
The Nation
June 19, 2009
The most disturbing thing about Barack Obama’s call for financial reform was the way in which the president falsified our predicament. He tried to make it sound as though everyone was implicated in the financial breakdown and therefore no one was really to blame. “A culture of irresponsibility took root from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street,” Obama explained. “And a regulatory system basically crafted in the wake of a 20th century economic crisis–the Great Depression–was overwhelmed by the speed, scope and sophistication of a 21st century global economy.”
That is not what happened, to put it charitably. Unlike some other presidents, Obama is much too intelligent not to know this. The regulatory system was not overwhelmed by historic forces. It was systematically gutted and dismantled by the government in Washington at the behest of the banking interests. If Obama wants details, he can consult his economic advisors–Summers-Geithner–who participated directly as accomplices in unwinding the prudential rules and regulations. Cheers were led by the Federal Reserve with heavy lifting by both political parties.
Thanks for posting this, sadlyyes. It’s frightening realizing that Obama is nothing more that Junior Bush with brains.
Goldman contributed $1 million to Obama’s campaign. And 2X as much to the Dems as the Repubs. What a bargain and good betting, eh? So Lehman sank and AIG was saved, $600+ billion to AIG, just so Goldman would not lose $ and all the President’s
mencronies would get their money and security and power. $600 billion circled the bowl into AIG.When you think of it, 6 billion or so people on the face of the earth and Obama could have given each human being $100 but instead, the black hole of corruption.
Disgusting.
And working within the system will curb the greed and corruption and lies?
Ha.
I get the feeling that Obama is extremely naive. There’s no other explanation at this point. Bush with a brain is a dangerous thing, otoh.
Somebody is missing some fundamentally important point here.