The Wall Street Journal headline today was
Banks Set for Record Pay
Top 38 Firms on Pace to Award $145 Billion for '09, Up 18% WSJ Study Finds
http://online.wsj.com/...
A few clips:
The growth reflects a rebound in the banking industry's revenue to pre-crisis levels. The firms in the analysis are on pace to report $450 billion in revenue, a 25% increase from 2007. Overall, pay is on pace to be equivalent to about 32% of revenue, a decline from 40% in 2008.
.......
Total compensation and benefits at the publicly traded firms analyzed by the Journal are on track to increase 18% from 2008's $123.4 billion, and 6% from 2007's $137.23 billion payout. This year, employees at the companies will earn an estimated $149,192 on average, up almost $3,000 from 2007 levels.
Let's put this into perspective... continued
The WSJ doesn't provide a count of the total number of employees involved BUT we are talking about ONLY 38 firms.
AND......I guarantee that FAR more people at these firms are making less than the 'average' of $149,192 quoted - with a far smaller number making FAR FAR more. You KNOW their clerical and administrative staffs - the worker drones - are not paid anywhere near $100,000.
It's always interesting how the WSJ NEVER focuses on the amounts paid out at the TOP levels - but ALWAYS talks of 'average' numbers. Those million dollar compensation packages 'average out' with a large number of ill paid positions to given that $147,000 number.
and a reminder:
We are NOT talking about the EARNINGS of these firms but the COMPENSATION paid to their employees.
(And would ANY Of these firms be profitable without the infustion of low cost capital coming from the Fed and Treasury?)
In contrast, lets look at NATIONAL GDP's:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
https://www.cia.gov/...
$145 BILLION would rank number 53 on the list of world GDP's - using the CIA Factbook and IMF figures - 52 using World Bank figures.
This is ahead of Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Peru, Qatar, Libya, Slovakia (who comes in at 100.6 billion on the CIA list (less on others). The remaining countries GDP's fall off rapidly - going to less than $50 billion by number 75 on the list.
This is a little less than 1/3 of Saudi Arabia's GDP - which is 467-469 billion depending on who is reporting..
And with Haiti in the news..... THEIR GDP in less than $7 Billion - less than 1/20th of the amount being paid out to these 38 firms.....
Just something to think about.