"Well, Hell's bells. If we can't spend money on resort junkets, we'll damn well take cash. Just see if you can stop us."
Breaking news from The Guardian below the fold.
The Guardian
Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40.4bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.
Staff at six banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup will pick up the payouts despite being the beneficiaries of a $700bn bail-out from the US government that has already prompted widespread criticism. The government cash has been poured in on the condition that excessive executive pay will be curbed.
This is getting preposterous. How preposterous? This preposterous:
At one point last week Morgan Stanley's $10.7bn pay pot for the year to date was greater than the entire stock market value of the business. In effect, staff, on receiving their remuneration, could club together and buy the bank.
AIG was more or less shamed into cancelling (or at least claiming to have cancelled) all their scheduled sales junkets and what-not at expensive resort locations. That was small potatoes compared to the brass of these executive pay deals.
These banks need to be shamed into submission as well.