Quote from dhpar:
not sure i follow you here. do you suggest that when you start to fire people you start with the best ones? maybe in countrywide but at goldmans i doubt it...
gimme a break. When you need to be downsizing to cut expenses, you cut unnecessary expenses and the 'best' employees have a sense of self sacrifice and are understanding enough to forego their raiding on corporate assets temporarily considering tough times.
And don't tell me these aren't tough times. $13 of earnings estimate for this upcoming year seems like tough times for people that actually do not *create* anything.
A goldman job is corporate welfare, an award for who you know and where you graduated from. The investment banking culture is prevalent with a sense of entitlement for fair rewards with unfair (to the risktakers) amounts of risk. They get the benefit of the corporate shield freeing themselves of liability from their levered risktaking, and yet get the same benefit of unchecked profit incentives without downside personal risk.
If they are doing so well today (to justify these bonuses), they should exit from Warren Buffet's investment. No reason to pay so much for $$$ if you aren't destitute.
The i-banking profit model is flawed from the beginning, is morally destitute even in capitalist models - it is a blatant structure to extract wealth without recourse from a system vulnerable to it. I say add the recourse and tie up their bonuses in stock that is clawback succeptible for 10 years from award date. Maybe it will keep the risktaking in check.
Sign me up for the goldman job - it is a license to gamble (and profit) ridiculously without downside, even if systemic peril is the risk. Its sickening.
