After several years of record bonuses, some execs on Wall Street are now crying the blues.
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William Bryan Jennings, the Morgan Stanley U.S. bond-underwriting chief, was recently arrested for stabbing a New York taxi driver over a cab fare. He pleaded not guilty to assault and hate-crime charges based on the man’s Middle Eastern descent. |
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Another Morgan Stanley exec, David S. Walker, is a broker who was recently linked to a suspected big-money Manhattan madam millionaire. He was placed on administrative leave a day after he was publicly identified as having hosted a meeting where prosecutors say the woman was trying to raise money for a business venture. |
What's going on with these Wall Street executives?
Morgan Stanley swung into the red in the fourth quarter of last year,
reporting a loss of $275 million. The firm took a one-time $1.7 billion loss
related to a legal settlement with a financial services company, the bond
insurer Municipal Bond Insurance Association*.
| * MBIA has lawsuits pending against three other banks over securitizations that MBIA says it was defrauded into guaranteeing. Last week MBIA’s chief financial officer, C. Edward Chaplin, told analysts that MBIA had raised its expected payouts during the final quarter of 2011 because mortgage delinquencies were higher than anticipated. |
As confidence in the soundness of some of the world’s biggest banks was
falling, investors were selling off their shares of one financial institution
after another. The fears about Morgan Stanley were especially acute.
Investors were worried about the bank’s exposure to the European debt crisis,
its ability to weather a turbulent trading environment and its reliance on
short-term borrowing to finance its operations.
Morgan Stanley had previously announced that it had set aside $16.4
billion in 2011 to pay its employees, 51.2 percent of its net revenue. In 2010, Morgan
Stanley paid $16.05 billion to employees, which also came to roughly 51
percent of its revenue. In 2011, with money "tight", Morgan Stanley
decided to cap
all cash bonuses at a "measly" $125,000 for the year.
But James Gorman, the boss at Morgan Stanley, is
taking home $10.5 million
The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services
industry are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that many Wall
Street execs had expected, this according to interviews with bankers and their
accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.
But executive salaries do not always include non-cash compensation given for last year, and so may not give the full picture, given that many banks dole out a larger portion of their annual payouts in stock options.
And even execs at bankrupted firms with billions in missing money (such as MF Global Holdings) could also get bonuses for as much as several hundred thousand dollars each.
Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP
in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy, said in
interview: "People who don't have money don't understand the stress. Could
you imagine what it's like to say I got three kids in private school, and now I
have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?" Boo hoo!
Ilana Weinstein, chief executive officer of New York-based search firm IDW
Group LLC, bemoaned, "It's a disaster!" Boo hoo!
Mister Arbeeny, the managing principal at New York-based CMF Partners LLC,
an executive-search veteran whose work with hedge funds and banks earn him about
$500,000 in good years, said he no longer goes on annual ski trips to Whistler,
Tahoe or Aspen. Boo hoo!
Cry Baby Andrew Schiff
Andrew Schiff, the director of marketing for broker-dealer Euro Pacific
Capital recently complained in
an interview to Bloomberg that the lower bonus he earned ($350,000)
doesn't cover his family's private-school tuition. And he and his wife can no
longer afford their Kent, Connecticut summer rental - - or the upgrade they had
wanted to make on their Brooklyn duplex. (Schiff's brother is CEO at Euro
Pacific Capital.)
His family rents the lower duplex of a brownstone in Cobble Hill, where his
two children share a room. His 10-year- old daughter is a student at
$32,000-a-year Poly
Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn. His son, 7, will apply in a few
years.
"I can't imagine what I'm going to do," Schiff said. "I don't
have a dishwasher, we do all our dishes by hand!"
He and his family also rents a three-bedroom summer house in Connecticut and
will go there again this year for one month instead of four. Schiff said he
brings home less than $200,000 (that's net, after taxes, health-insurance and
401k contributions). "I wouldn't want to whine," Schiff said.
"All I want is the stuff that I always thought, growing up, that successful
parents had." Boo hoo!
Cry Baby Hans Kullberg
Hans Kullberg, 27, is a trader at the Wyckoff, New Jersey-based hedge fund Falcon
Management Corp. He earns about $150,000 a year, but is adjusting his
sights, too. Before that, he worked on an emerging-markets team at Citi Bank
that traded and marketed synthetic collateralized debt obligations.
Since then, his tastes for travel got "a little bit more lavish,"
he said. Kullberg went to a bachelor party in Las Vegas in January after renting
a four-bedroom ski cabin at Bear Mountain in California as a Christmas gift to
his parents. He went to Ibiza for another bachelor party in August, spending
$3,000 on a three-day trip. In May he spent 10 days in India.
Earlier this month, a friend invited Kullberg on a trip to Mardi Gras in New
Orleans. The friend was going to be a judge in a wet T-shirt contest. But this
time he turned down the offer. Now he says it wouldn't have been "the most
financially prudent thing to do. I'm not totally sure about what I'm going to
get paid this year - how I'm going to be doing." Boo hoo!
He thinks more about the long term and plans to buy a foreclosed two-bedroom
house* in Charlotte, North Carolina, for $50,000 next month.
| * The New York Times reported that the auction houses have been busy thriving with bargain hunters on foreclosed homes. People from around the world have scooped up houses that are often sold for less than half of the value of the mortgage. (It's a good time to have some extra cash to spend.) |
But most people like Schiff, Kullberg, and the other Wall Street whiners can only dream of Wall Street's shrinking paychecks. According to the U.S. Census Bureau median household income in 2010 was only $49,445, lower than the previous year. That is less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein's $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011.
Unemployment is still high. In 2012 almost 30 million Americans are either under-employed or unemployed. Even if the unemployment rate stays the same, many will still face foreclosures and evictions.
The percentage of Americans living in poverty has climbed to 15.1 percent, the highest in almost two decades. Almost half of all working Americans earned less than $27,000 a year - - when the poverty line for a family of four is $22,314. (Read: Obama's Welfare State)
According to the USDA, about 43% of households on food stamps had gross incomes at 50 percent or less of the poverty line. A full 85% had gross incomes below 100 percent of the poverty line -- that's only $10,830 a year for a single person such as myself. The remaining 15% were often elderly beneficiaries on fixed incomes such as Social Security.
And homelessness is still on the rise. One in 200 Americans spent
the night in a homeless shelter. Did those Wall Street executives cry for
them?
But things on Wall Street aren't bad for everyone - - the bosses are doing OK. Citigroup
Chief Executive Vikram Pandit got
his payday. The third biggest U.S. bank company paid Pandit $14.86 million
in 2011.
Although JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is making something of a sacrifice. His $18.8 million package represents a 17% cut from last year.
Even the bosses at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae can survive on their salary cuts, earning only $500,000 a year.
So maybe things aren't so bad for the other Wall Street execs either. Wall Street bonuses may have hit bottom in 2011, and they are now poised to rebound about 20% in 2012.
Boo hoo! Just think...all that crying for nothing! Just like Mitt Romney had said, we shouldn't worry about the rich. So everybody can just stop crying.
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My Related Posts:
- NEW STUDY: 10% on Wall Street are Psychopaths
- How CEOs are Rewarded for Fraud
- Proof that CEOs are Evil Psychopaths
- Drug Test Congress and CEOs
- Why Do Rich Republicans Always Whine? (Watch the cool video I made.)
Most Recent CEO Arrests
Michael Gilliland, the CEO for large grocery store chain in Austin Texas has
resigned following an arrest in a child
prostitution sting.
Don Vaccaro, the CEO of TicketNetwork Inc. was arrested for hurling a racial insult at a bouncer who said Vaccaro had been making unwanted advances to a woman.
David Jelenik, the CEO and manager of Jelenik Construction surrendered to State Police at Malta barracks after being charged with nine felonies for tax fraud.
Gary Butler, former CEO of Automatic Data Processing, Inc. was arrested on a criminal domestic violence charge a few days before the payroll processor announced his retirement.
Gerard Jay Tollett, the former president and CEO of the Greater Houston
Convention and Visitors Bureau has been charged with driving
while intoxicated for the second time within a five-year period.
Bob Bartosiewicz, the CEO of CGI Communications got into a scuffle with
officers and charged with
resisting arrest, harassment and trespassing.
Carlton DeWayne Dunko, the CEO of the American Shingle Roofing Company was accused of bilking hundreds of people in 10 states out of their money and was charged with "theft by conversion".
Roger Berkowitz, the CEO of Legal Sea Foods has been charged with drug possession and trafficking.
etc, etc, etc...
Also, check out this website TooMuch -- and sign up for their weekly newsletter.
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