General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFerrari and Yacht Dealers Rejoice! Wall Street Hands Out Even More Obscene Bonuses Than Last Year`
http://www.alternet.org/ferrari-and-yacht-dealers-rejoice-wall-street-hands-out-even-more-obscene-bonuses-last-yearPurveyors of Ferraris and high-end Swiss watches keep their fingers crossed toward the end of each calendar year, hoping that the big Wall Street banks will be generous with their annual cash bonuses.
New figures show that the bonus bonanza of 2013 didnt disappoint. According to the New York State Comptrollers office, Wall Street firms handed out $26.7 billion in bonuses to their 165,200 employees last year, up 15 percent over the previous year. Thats their third-largest haul on record.
That money will no doubt boost sales of luxury goods. Just imagine how much greater the economic benefit would be if that same amount of money had gone into the pockets of minimum-wage workers.
The $26.7 billion Wall Streeters pocketed in bonuses would cover the cost of more than doubling the paychecks for all of the 1,085,000 Americans who work full-time at the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)which, if you think about it, has "stop me before I kill again" aspects.
Ya know, our old 'noblesse oblige' class dressed humbly for a reason.
Think hard....consent of the....
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Since some don't understand how alternet works.
Otherwords is a great liberal site.
http://otherwords.org/wall-street-bonuses-vs-minimum-wage/
Anyway kick and nominate
BTW Bill Moyers' site has this story too.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)NashuaDW
(90 posts)Can you explain how you can equate a private company giving bonuses to productive employees to several thousand independent business paying minimum wage?
Isn't it safe to assume that each of those employees getting a bonus met their employer's goals and earned their bonus? I know I have a set of goals that I have to meet to get my quarterly and annual bonuses.
Besides the logistics, how would you tell someone (like me) that even though I earned my bonus it's going to be redirected to give a minimum wage worker a raise?
What would that do for my motivation next year once my bonus has confiscated?
As most bonuses are performance-based, confusing any company's bonus plan with giving a group of other employees a pay raise makes for great rhetoric but fails the common-sense test.
Also, let's not overlook the fact that the state will collect taxes at a higher rate than ordinary income on those bonuses. I know I get killed with the tax rate on my bonuses.
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)But Wall Street's culture is fundamentally broken, as witnessed by the 2008 crisis in financial instruments they had invented and sold without fully understanding. Wall Street hasn't learned anything from that experience by all accounts, and continues to operate largely outside serious regulation, and reap big bonuses for leading the economy in risky and unsound ways.
I don't think the mechanics of getting a hold on bonuses and increasing the minimum wage works; but we could tax these outsized bonuses at a higher rate and use the money to rebuild our troubled infrastructure which would put a lot of people to work.
Bryant
jsr
(7,712 posts)Your sarcasm is cute but let's look at what happens when someone get a large bonus and spends it on a Ferrari :
They pay a huge amount of tax on the bonus
They pay sales tax and registration tax on the car
They provide income for the Ferrari dealer and all of its employees
They provide the commission for the salesperson
They help guarantee a job for the Ferrari mechanic
They help pay the car insurance salesman's salary
If they invest the money it help budding businesses have access to capital
If they save it the banks can loan it to families
and finally, they pay a lot of money in speeding tickets
I think the general attitude here, and a lot of other places, is that these bonuses are not earned or deserved. The people that get the bonuses are, typically, hard working people that produce for their employer.
jsr
(7,712 posts)kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)and they choose to spend it on items not made by US citizens for fear of giving them jobs.