Cry me a River ~ Some on Wall Street will not receive bonuses.

[MattSh]

Bonus season is fast approaching on Wall Street, but this year the talk does not center just on multimillion-dollar paydays. It’s about a new club that no one wants to join: the Zeros.

Drawn from a broad swath of back-office employees and middle-level traders, bankers and brokers, the Zeros, as they have come to be called, are facing a once-unthinkable prospect: an annual bonus of ... nothing.

“It’s going to a cause a lot of panic on Wall Street,” said Richard Stein of Global Sage, an executive search firm. “Everybody is talking about it, but they’re actually concerned about it becoming public. I would not want to be head of compensation at a Wall Street firm right now.”

In some ways, a zero bonus should not come as a surprise to many bankers. As a result of the 2008 financial crisis, Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs and banks like Citigroup raised base pay substantially in 2009 and 2010. They were seeking to placate regulators who had argued that bonuses based on performance encouraged excessive risk.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/business/20bonus.html

[Skittles]

1. and these same fuckers got their tax cuts extended

:puke:

[bluestateguy]

2. It's not the big boys who are going to get zeroed

It'll be the secretaries, the office clerks, the AAs,the runners and the errand boys.

[Golden Raisin]

3. I can't speak for

every company but I work for a large and prominent financial institution and none of the job categories above receive bonuses unless they happen to have the rare boss willing to give something out of his/her pocket.

[tkmorris]

4. Those people never recieved bonuses

You do know that right?

[bluestateguy]

10. No I guess I didn't know that

I always assumed that in good years the menial workers got a few bread crumbs.

[BeyondGeography]

5. The disconnect from the actual economy is appalling

"In the first three quarters of the year, Wall Street earned $21.4 billion, putting it on track to easily outpace 2006, when the economy was booming, and well ahead of the New York City government’s initial estimate of $20.6 billion for profit in all of 2010.

This year, Wall Street’s five biggest firms have put aside nearly $90 billion for bonuses."

[Skittles]

6. ESPECIALLY considering:

1) they played a huge part in CRASHING the economy

and

2) THEY RECEIVED GOVERNMENT BAILOUTS

[BeyondGeography]

7. Yep

And, of course, their entire cozy tax structure, right down to paying 15% for their private equity paydays, remains intact.

[Starry Messenger]

8. recommend.

[dkf]

9. Oh for goodness sakes they are getting the same pay but more of it as a salary

Which is how they should do it.

Please give me a break on this ego fest that has done so much damage in the past.