Posted on 10/23/2009 4:15:23 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- There's no need to fear a Wall Street brain drain -- despite the crackdown on pay by Washington.
On Thursday, White House pay czar Kenneth Feinberg outlined compensation restrictions at seven firms that got special bailouts, and the Federal Reserve proposed to review pay practices at 28 unnamed giant banks.
Critics warn that reining in pay makes it hard to keep talented employees. Hemmed in, institutions like AIG (AIG, Fortune 500),Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) could lose their best people.
These firms would then perform even more abysmally, if that's possible, leaving them hard pressed to repay tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer-backed loans.
Still, we say Godspeed to this "talent." After all, the traders and suits in the corner offices don't exactly have an unblemished track record. In 2008, Citigroup, BofA and Merrill Lynch (since acquired by BofA) posted a grand total of $51 billion in losses.
Yet even as they were running themselves into the ground, the firms managed to pay out more than $12 billion in bonuses -- including 1,606 million-dollar-plus bonuses, according to a report from the New York attorney general's office.
"Even a cursory examination of the data suggests that in these challenging economic times, compensation for bank employees has become unmoored from the banks' financial performance," the report said.
Meanwhile, it's hard to imagine that defection-hit firms would have a lot of trouble finding qualified replacements in the current job market.
Unemployment has doubled nationally since December 2007, when the recession started. Securities industry employment has fallen 10% nationwide and 14% in New York from a mid-2008 peak, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, costing some 90,000 jobs in the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
The regulations on mileage for cars make cars lighter and insurance companies rates are sky high, cause a small fender bender ends up costing thousands of dollars and more people die in accidents. To solve this more regulations, air bags in the front, then its the sides, pretty soon you'll totally enveloped in air bags and have a periscope to see the road...(that one is a little exaggeration).
This didn't happen overnight, the public let them do it cause it was for the safety of all until freedom is nevermore..I have watched it creep since the 70's...
Those nanny's love the regs. smoking nazi's, snitch on your neighbor nanny's, seat belt nanny's, cycle helmet nanny's, even helmets for kids on bikes...I raised 5 and my good Lord, they survived without the government....so did I..I was born before the end of WW2.
“It is incumbent upon the honorable craftsman
to be aware of whether or not his services are being used
as a means to accomplish evil ends -
and to ACT accordingly.”
Exactly! Don't worry, the idiots in Congress will fix things. LOL!
Whom or What is that from? I love IT.
That’s the moral code I had to invent for myself while working as a Sr. Programmer / Analyst as described here....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2065826/posts?page=18#18
...it was the only way I could sleep at night.
Please feel free to use it and pass it on.
Imagine if every person in government lived by it ;-}
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