Who cares if Wall Street 'talent' leaves? (Fortune/CNNMoney.com)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Colin Barr, senior writer
October 23, 2009: 10:13 AM ET

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- There's no need to fear a Wall Street brain drain -- despite the crackdown on pay by Washington.

On Thursday, White House pay czar Kenneth Feinberg outlined compensation restrictions at seven firms that got special bailouts, and the Federal Reserve proposed to review pay practices at 28 unnamed giant banks.

Critics warn that reining in pay makes it hard to keep talented employees. Hemmed in, institutions like AIG (AIG, Fortune 500),Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) could lose their best people.

These firms would then perform even more abysmally, if that's possible, leaving them hard pressed to repay tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer-backed loans.

Still, we say Godspeed to this "talent." After all, the traders and suits in the corner offices don't exactly have an unblemished track record. In 2008, Citigroup, BofA and Merrill Lynch (since acquired by BofA) posted a grand total of $51 billion in losses.
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more: http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/23/news/newsmakers/fed.feinberg.fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes



:applause:

[kenny blankenship]

1. Anything short of violence to get these parasites out of the country has my vote

[imdjh]

3. What's wrong with violence? Is there to be no deterrent?

[yurbud]

16. if capital punishment was okay for Tim McVeigh then these guys deserve it even more.

[imdjh]

2. Talent. Yeah right. I am so sick of this "most qualified" bullshit. We have 300 million people

300 million people means that almost no one is irreplaceable, no one is the only or the best in any meaningful way. Madonna is great, and she can be replaced in a snap. You can kill the entire NBA in a train crash, and restaff it tomorrow with good people others will pay to see.

Lock up all the Wall Street people and put the jobs that are actually necessary up for bids, and the scumbuckets of the world will slither from the woodwork to fill the corner offices.

[JuniperLea]

4. Where would they go? No one is hiring!

Ridiculous.

[lsewpershad]

11. Let them go to hell

there are no limits to pay there.

[murray hill farm]

5. Isn't it time to get....

some fresh new talent? New and bright and untarnished by the old ways? It is way past time.

[Maccagirl]

6. My job performance is judged daily

and if I don't meet standards I'm put on probation etc. Why are the "talented" people treated differently? Gee, let me think about that one for 2 seconds...

[Journeyman]

7. When a poor fielder bats under .105, what team keeps him, no matter how much or little he's paid?...

Ship him back to the minors. There are plenty of excellent players just waiting for the chance to show what they can do in "the show."

[theoldman]

8. What if the best and the brightest were replaced with intelligent people?

There is a big difference between being smart and being intelligent(knowledgeable. The Wall Street guys were neither, they were stupid. Why else did they fail and lose billions of dollars.

[Birthmark]

9. But without that great talent...

...how will Wall Street know which cliff to drive over?

[safeinOhio]

10. Like any other job

out source it. After all the only important thing is short term profit.

[katty]

12. talent for what? repeated criminal activity?! let them leave!

[newtothegame]

13. Are we going to fire all retailers for their losses last year? $51 billion is nothing compared. n/t

[tomm2thumbs]

14. it's that 'Talent' that ruined our country - maybe it better leave yesterday

[Joe Chi Minh]

15. If only they would consider their loot as an inducement you paid them to

please, please leave asap.... Particularly if it were then clawed back!

[thelayoff]

17. Dear Middle-class Suckers - THANK YOU

Gotta pay out those bonuses to our talent, right... They did fine job this year, Dow is up like 30% this year, Nasdaq 40%, while "Middle Class Rape Index" is at all time high with a potential of doubling by the time Christmas bonuses are chashed out...

Luxury sales throughout the Hamptons and Long Island’s North Fork climbed 31 percent in the quarter to 46 transactions.

The median luxury price dropped 11 percent from a year earlier to $4.28 million, according to the survey. Miller defines the luxury market as the top 10 percent of sales, which in the third quarter included homes priced at $3.2 million or more.

High-end sellers who cut their price did so by an average of 17 percent compared with 14 percent a year ago.

[BlueMTexpat]

18. Let this "talent" go ... the sooner the better.

It would be better to have people with less "talent" and more scruples.

[Pharlo]

19. 'talent' refers to ass - kissing

and 'best and brightest' refers to personal connections. As in who you know, not what you know.

As long as people suffer from the misapprenhension that 'talent' and 'best and brightest' refers, in this instance, to intelligence, this confusion will continue.

If put out of a job tomorrow, these people will find good paying jobs through their connections once again - only 'the best and the brightest' connections.

[Lucky Luciano]

20. To be fair, it is a very small percentage of people that

truly broke all the banks. There is still a lot of talent at the banks because surely you understand that not ALLLLLL of the people there were idiots...and you cannot really call them idiots either - they figured out how to make money for themselves - selfish and greedy assholes - perhaps you can call them that, but they are not fools.

[UpInArms]

21. to that "talent" that chooses to leave -

I say:

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

[Anakin Skywalker]

22. CEOs are Overrated. "Brain Drain", Really?

Does it really take genius level thinking to exploit people?

[eppur_se_muova]

23. Maybe more of a "chutzpah drain"? nt