Fortune Magazine: Who cares if Wall Street 'talent' leaves?

[FourScore]

Who cares if Wall Street 'talent' leaves?
If lower pay lures some of Wall Street's finest away, so be it. It's not as if the best and brightest were doing a good job to begin with.

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...

http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/23/news/newsmakers/fed.feinberg.fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes

[havocmom]

1. If the 'talent' is so talented, why are the companies in such sad shape?

Fuck 'em. They can get real jobs, with real supervision, real responsibilities that they REALLY are accountable for if they don't want to accept REASONABLE compensation. They can stop telling us what they are worth and go prove it some where. Let them drive some more fools and their companies under, if they can get hired for more.

[malaise]

3. Their talent is criminality

They are white collar thieves

[havocmom]

4. Worse, they are economic terrorists and have done tremendous damage to the nation

They should be glad they are not in jail instead of making threats to get more of the same they have taken.

[malaise]

7. + 1

:hi:

[Deja Q]

6. Or why the companies got caught - real talent doesn't wreck everything in its path, right?

[alittlelark]

2. The 'Talent' has dirt on everyone else - esp. those at the top.

They must be kept complacent w/ $$$$$$$$$.

[Brigid]

5. This was in "Fortune" magazine?

:wow:

[Telly Savalas]

8. The business press can be suprisingly sober at times.

[Lifelong Protester]

9. Lead story on CNNMoney yesterday

and spot on. "Talent"? My Aunt Tillie's foot! And that is what the article said. They can all threaten to hold their collective breath until they are blue for all we care. Maria Bartiromom actually took the tack in an interview that if these poor widdle lambs didn't get their high level pay we'd be forgoing a lot of money to the US income taxes. Like those people pay taxes! They have so many loopholes to avoid tax... moot point.
But I thought "how desperate is CNBC to keep this charade of 'pay for talent' scheme going that they would look at tossing out the idea that we'd be missing out on taxes on all that income!"

[Generic Other]

10. If they were paid commensurate with their performances, they'd get pink slips

Since when is brought a multi-billion dollar corporation to the brink of bankruptcy a selling point on the old resume?