"Even at reduced levels, Massachusetts workers still stand to receive several billion dollars in bonuses"
Why are they getting a DAMN DIME when they LOST MONEY?!!! Corporate give you a Xmas bonus (if you have a job), or was that taken away long ago?
"Mass. financial sector bonuses to plunge; Cuts of 50% may occur, costing the state tax revenue" by Ross Kerber, Globe Staff | December 11, 2008
Bonuses for workers in the Massachusetts financial industry are likely to be down as much as 50 percent this year, compensation consultants estimate, beaten down by plunging markets that already have led to big layoffs.
Frank Glassner, chief executive of Compensation Design Group, a San Francisco firm that studies pay issues for companies, said 2008 is "easily the worst year in executive pay I've seen in three decades."
Yeah, I'm sure they are CRYING all the way to the POOR HOUSE!!!
Nationwide, Glassner estimates total bonus payouts will drop by billions of dollars among public companies alone. In Massachusetts that drop-off, by one economist's estimate, could be close to $2 billion among all firms, not just those in the financial sector, and will result in lower tax revenue to the state. But even at reduced levels, Massachusetts workers still stand to receive several billion dollars in bonuses altogether.
That fund managers, bank executives, and other investment professionals would get any bonus this year may come as a surprise, with the high pay in the industry a sore point for members of Congress who supported a multibillion-dollar bailout of the financial world this year. Indeed, with political sensitivity high around the issue, top executives at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group, formerly the nation's largest investment banks, elected to forgo bonuses this year.
But financial firms use various measures of performance to determine bonuses. At some companies, for example, bonuses can be based on performance on a quarterly basis, so some managers will be due extra pay because the first two quarters of the year were relatively good. At mutual fund companies, meanwhile, fund managers and their supporting casts are judged not just on overall returns, but on how they compared to competitors and industry benchmarks. By losing less money for clients than a competitor or comparative index, a fund manager could be eligible for a bonus....
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Citizens Bank, Sovereign Bank, and Pioneer Investments have yet to set bonus details, according to spokesmen for those companies. MFS Investment Management, Wellington Management, and Evergreen Investments declined to comment on their bonus situations.
State Street Corp. said its 2008 compensation levels will be determined in the first quarter of 2009 and be based on performance measures. The Boston giant that provides services to other financial firms received $2 billion in taxpayer funds under the US government's bank-recapitalization plan in October. State Street last week disclosed plans to lay off up to 1,800 workers. A spokeswoman said no taxpayer funds will be used to pay bonuses.
No, they will shuffle that shell around and use that for something else!!!!
Last year, State Street chief executive Ronald Logue received $28.3 million, including a $1 million salary and about $19 million worth of cash and stock incentive awards, according to an SEC filing. His 2008 compensation will be disclosed in the annual proxy statement, to be filed in the spring.
But most other financial companies in Boston do not disclose what they pay top executives, either because they are privately held, such as Fidelity, or because they are units of larger foreign companies, as are Putnam and MFS.
Meanwhile, in Britain, government officials imposed a much stricter limit on executive compensation as part of that country's bailout of financial firms. For example, directors of Citizens Bank parent Royal Bank of Scotland, which received a roughly $31 billion government infusion, won't get 2008 bonuses.
How come the DUM-DUM U.S. CONGRESS didn't get the SAME DEAL? Why didn't they WRITE IT in the LEG?!!!! What, Bush gonna veto it then? GOOD!!! I didn't want this giveaway in the first place, and made several angry phone calls about it!!!!
The US financial bailout included measures aimed at limiting executive compensation at firms receiving taxpayer funds, but critics have said those restrictions are largely toothless.
LOOK at THAT, folks! We get a whole HALF a SENTENCE before the PRO-BANK MSM is MOVING ON!!!!
Indeed, The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Merrill Lynch chief executive John Thain had requested a bonus of as much as $10 million, arguing he had saved the venerable firm from further ruin by engineering its sale to Bank of America Corp.
The UNABASHED GREED is ASTONISHING!
The story sparked an outcry, and Thain and other Merrill executives subsequently said they would forgo bonuses....
Yeah, AFTER people like me have to fuss and fume on sites like this!!! WHY must it COME TO THAT, huh? What a bunch of SCUMBAGS down on WALL STREET!!!!!
