"Business is back on Wall Street", the July 2 Wall Street Journal said. The WSJ said "lofty pay packets may be set for a come back as well".
It seems you can't keep the greed on Wall Street down.
The Earth-shattering crisis that has enveloped the world began on Wall Street. The combination of shocking trading practices, fuelled by greed, and huge bonuses for executives who oversaw the financial crash that brought down major US banks and investment houses sparked widespread anger.
You might think that would cause the executives and top brokers to pause. But it seems the first sign of life on the stock market and they jump headfirst back into the trough.
The WSJ said: "Based on analysts' earnings forecasts for 2009, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is on track to pay out as much as [US] $20 billion this year, or about $700,000 per employee. That would be nearly double the firm's $363,000 average last year, and slightly higher than the $661,000 for the average Goldman employee in fiscal 2007 ...
"Morgan Stanley, the only other huge U.S. securities firm left as an independent company, will likely pay out $11 billion to $14 billion in compensation and benefits this year ... On a per-employee basis, payouts are expected to exceed last year's average of $262,000 ..."
The WSJ acknowledged "the comeback in compensation so far this year shows how hard it is
for Wall Street to break its old habits".
"I'm seeing deals like it's 2007 again", Steven Eckhaus, an executive-employment lawyer, told the WSJ.
"He's worked on several deals recently that featured eight-figure guaranteed pay packages stretched over one to three years", the paper said.
So, while suffering is increasing for billions due to an economic crisis they had nothing to do with causing, those responsible are about to be rewarded with more obscene bonuses.