Oh the Oppression! Oh the Tyranny! Oh the doG-awful Whining With No Reason!

I was looking through various "news" web sites this morning when I came across this article from Tiger Beat On the Potomac (h/t Mr Pierce). The headline alone made me shake my head, "Wall Street gets misty as Bloomberg departs" then it just got worse as I read the "article":

Michael Bloomberg isn’t leaving office until January but Wall Street is already beginning to miss the New York City mayor — and bracing for a possible backlash from his replacement.

In his 12 years leading the city, Bloomberg has been a vocal champion of New York’s business and banking communities. When the knives have come out, he has time and again come to the defense of the financial services industry without batting an eye at the political reality that advocating for Wall Street is a highly unpopular move for public officials.

Awwww. Da poor widdle babies have their fee-fees hurt by those big bad people, led by a politician who thinks they might do a bit more to pay for services:

Many in New York’s business and financial elite, stung by the abrupt ascent of Bill de Blasio, an unapologetic tax-the-rich liberal, are fixated on a single question: What are we going to do?

The idea that someone like DiBlasio might replace Bloomberg as NYC Mayor seems to set alarums blaring among the power elite and rich in New York.

Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break.

A couple of years or so ago, I wrote a diary after reading some whines from JP Morgan/Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Now we have more of the rich 1% from Wall St whining about how their taxes might go up and how dare he! From Raw Story:

New York City, like much of the nation, is living with a vast divide between rich and poor. In appearances leading up to Tuesday’s primary election, Brooklyn-based Democrat di Blasio decried these inequalities, saying, “We are not, by our nature, an elitist city. We are not a city for the chosen few,” statements that have set off alarm bells among the city’s top tier of business leaders and the well-to-do.

Oh those oppressed Titans of Wall St and Masters of the Universe! They are so oppressed, just like the Fundamentalist Christians and straight white men, they never get things their way. Why, they just might have to go on Food Stamps after they pay their taxes in a DiBlasio administration:

When it comes to average per capita wealth, New York City has been eclipsed by a handful of other locales, but the city that never sleeps still holds sway in the public imagination as the capital of capital, the center of the financial industry, and a place where a $235,000 salary still only counts as middle class. But, as a couple of recent articles show, New York isn't just a center of American wealth: it's also a center of American wealth inequality, a place where the divide between the very rich and the very poor is sometimes only a matter of a few hundred feet ... as the crow flies.

I'm sure you'll pardon me if I shed no tears for these members of the Clueless Class.

And because I can:

Oh Noes! Wall Street Might Not Get Their Bonuses!

So I was doing my standard web surfing this AM after I had checked the (non-existent) jobs listings when I saw this from Bloomberg with the title, "Half of Wall Street Employees Expect Bigger Bonuses":

Almost half of Wall Street employees expect their year-end bonuses to be higher this year than they were a year ago, according to an eFinancialCareers.com survey.

Of the 911 U.S. financial professionals who responded to the e-mailed survey, 48 percent anticipate a higher payout, up from 41 percent in a similar survey last year, the job-search website said today in a statement. Employees of hedge funds and other asset managers were more optimistic than those at banks and broker-dealers, according the statement. Of the respondents, 82 percent work for U.S.-based companies.

Well imagine my surprise this afternoon when I see this one from Bloomberg titled "Wall Street Bonus Pool Seen Shrinking for Second Straight Year":

Wall Street’s cash bonus pool is likely to fall for a second straight year as the financial industry grapples with market turmoil, economic weakness and new rules, New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said.

Revenue and compensation trends have “edged downward” since February, when DiNapoli estimated that the 2011 pool for Wall Street declined by 13.5 percent to $19.7 billion, the comptroller said today in a report.

The New York Times presented it this way this afternoon:

It still pays to be on Wall Street.

Even as the financial industry in New York has slashed jobs by the thousands, the average worker who remains is collecting a near-record paycheck.

In a report released on Tuesday, the New York State Comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, said that the average pay package of securities industry employees grew slightly last year and was up 16.6 percent over the past two years, to $362,950. Wall Street’s total compensation rose 4 percent last year to more than $60 billion.

CNBC appears to be trying to split the differences with this report titled "Wall Street Expects Bigger Bonuses But May Not Get Them" as they report on the same survey that Bloomberg covered in the first link:

Revenue is down on Wall Street but expectations for bonuses are up — at least for some workers who have seen their pay shrink since the financial crisis explosion.

A survey from eFinancial Careers shows 48 percent of workers on the Street are looking for higher bonuses than 2011. Expectations are high even as investment banking revenue is down 11 percent for the same period last year while the securities industry overall saw revenue fall 7 percent in the first half.

At the same time, some of the larger firms have been doing better as the headwinds from the European debt crisis subside and hopes grow that the industry will close the year out strongly.

Meanwhile as Wall Street whines its way along, our (not-so-favorite) Masters of the Universe, Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon are once again daring to spout their nonsense. Jon Walker at FDL Action presents this:

What I find most ironic about these CEO deficit hawks complaining about the “uncertainty” that is hurting the economy is that they are the ones responsible for helping to create said uncertainty to begin with. The deficit obsession created the uncertainty about raising the debt ceiling. Similarly, they constantly pushed for a big deficit deal resulting in the creation of the sequesters, which are seen as a big source of the fiscal uncertainty at the moment. The main “uncertainty” about government policy right now is how the government will clean up the mess created by past efforts to force a deficit deal.

But hey, MotU never have to be accountable for destroying the economy. After all, they deserve those millions dollars of bonuses right? Destroying the global economy is hard ass work so they must be compensated for it.

Meanwhile, CNN actually touches base with the real world with this article on part time jobs being the new normal in employment. Notice how much attention is paid to the ravings of Blankfein and Dimon and the Wall St WATB versus the attention paid to the rest of us in the real world?

And because I can:
Happy Birthday John. RIP

Just how bad must wages and benefits be for most people?

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In my post from a couple of days ago, I linked to and quoted from this from Yahoo quoting former Labor Secretary Robert Reich:

In addition, while the economy has been expanding for nearly three years and hiring is picking up, Reich notes, "we also see some major declines in terms of median wage. And that's particularly true for the bottom 90 percent."

In the past, economists argued that wage growth lagged in part because employers were spending more on benefits like health care and pensions. But that hasn't been the case in the past few years. A recently released study from the National Institute for Health Care Reform shows that in 2010, the percentage of Americans with insurance who got insurance from employers fell to 53.5 percent, down sharply from 63.6 percent in 2007. "At the top of the talent chain, employers are providing very generous health insurance, deferred compensation, and everything you can imagine," notes Reich. "But as you go down the job ladder, particularly to people who are doing routine jobs, they're getting less and less. There has been a substantial erosion of health care benefits for the bottom 90 percent.

As I surfed the various news sites this morning though, I did find a couple of articles pointing out that some groups are still seeing their salaries and benefits go up, so all is not lost.

In the "No CEOs Left Behind" category, we have this article from today's (April 4) USA Today, "CEO pay soars while workers' pay stalls":

At a time most employees can barely remember their last substantial raise, median CEO pay jumped 27% in 2010 as the executives’ compensation started working its way back to prerecession levels, a USA TODAY analysis of data from GovernanceMetrics International found. Workers in private industry, meanwhile, saw their compensation grow just 2.1% in the 12 months ended December 2010, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Two years of scaling back amid tough economic times proved temporary as three-quarters of CEOs got raises in 2010 — and, in many cases, the increases were substantial.

This blog post from Reuters written by a corporate board member points out a few of the problems with executive pay:

There are several factors at play as the remunerations committee and the board as a whole try to weave together pay packages.

Compensation consultants.
...snip...
Personal feelings.
...snip...
A disconnect from today’s reality.
...snip...
A lack of direct accountability.

I especially like that third point. A disconnect from today's reality indeed. And speaking of disconnects from today's reality, we have this from Bloomberg today on rising Wall Street salaries for most:

Most Wall Street (S5FINL) employees got higher salaries in 2011, with the biggest bumps going to those at boutique banks and alternative asset managers, according to a survey by eFinancialCareers.com.

The online survey of 2,860 financial professionals found that 54 percent received salary increases -- excluding bonus -- and 40 percent reported no change from 2010, according to an e- mailed description of the survey’s findings. Workers at so- called bulge-bracket banks got an average increase of 3 percent, compared with a 14 percent gain for people at boutique banks and a 13 percent raise for those at fund managers.

When year-end bonuses were included, average pay last year fell for workers at companies including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s investment bank amid declining revenue. As year-end bonuses dropped, some banks raised base salaries that in past years contributed just a fraction of pay for senior employees.

But no matter what happens, we can be assured that Jamie Dimon will find something to whine about. Why just this morning, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission has fined JPMorgan the astronomical sum of $20M to settle charges related to the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS! (/Dr Evil voice) Why based on JPMorgan's reported profit from 2011 of $19B, that's a whopping .1%. By my rough math, that is less than a half day's worth of profits.

And because I can:

These are only problems for the top 1%

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If you read me often enough, you have probably noticed that I tend to check various news and opinion sites throughout the TradMed each morning, after I've spent a few minutes reviewing emails and jobs sites. Most of the time, I just shake my head at the various levels of stupidity I find, not being able to quite give it the full YOU HAVE GOT TO BE F*CKING KIDDING ME! treatment so richly deserved. Then there are days like today where teh stoopid is so truly dumbfounding.

Today, we have Henry Kravis, co-founder of private equity firm KKR, sending up a fine whine to Bloomberg on how tighter credit rules are forcing the private equity firms to kick in more of their own money and making buy-outs more expensive. Sayeth Mr Kravis:

“As the debt markets tighten and the cost of capital goes up, something has got to give,” Kravis said yesterday at the Bloomberg Dealmakers Summit in New York. “You just have to pay more.”

Kravis, 67, said the cost of capital for a leveraged buyout has risen more than 2 percentage points since the firm agreed to buy Pfizer Inc.’s Capsugel unit in April, forcing buyers to put up more cash for deals and borrow less. Uncertainty in the equity markets also is making it more difficult to reap profits through initial public offerings or sales of companies owned by private-equity funds, he said.

...snip...

Buyout firms typically use loans secured on the targets they acquire to finance more than half of the purchase price and cash from their own funds for the rest. The firms seek to improve performance at the companies they acquire or expand them before selling them within about five years.

KKR, which Kravis created in 1976 with George Roberts and Jerome Kohlberg, is expanding into hedge funds, real estate and underwriting to reduce reliance on buyouts after the firm gained a listing on the New York Stock Exchange last year. KKR this year hired a group of former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) traders led by Bob Howard to start KKR’s first hedge fund.

Wow. Just. Wow.

Mr. Kravis joins JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon as a poster child for those who have no clue about life amongst the peons. Now Dimon has set the whiners' bar high with his whines about how banksters get no love and how it's just so mean as to be anti-American to require banks to increase their capital but I think Kravis has nudged Lloyd Blankfein out of second place.

Private Equity firms use small per cents of their own funds and large debt in leveraged buy-outs. There seem to be as many articles saying LBOs are bad as there are good. I'm sure it is no surprise that I lean towards the LBO = bad perspective. While there may be some benefits in efficiencies, there are far too many examples of lost jobs, high interest payments on those loans, and destroyed pensions. The pattern seems to be Private Equity firm creates huge debt to take over Business. Business then has to service the resulting debt before investing in R&D, employees, pensions, whatever. In order to streamline costs, Private Equity firm is within a couple of years "forced" to declare bankruptcy, turning their pension obligations over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. At the end of approximately five years, the private equity firm files for an "Initial Public Offering" for all or part of the firm they had taken private five years before. IN the intervening years, they have cut employees, destroyed the pension, used company assets to pay off the debt (which never seems to be in their names, but only in the name of the company they used the debt to acquire) and walk away with more millions to off set the devastation they leave in their wake.

Congratulations Henry Kravis, your whine even managed to top that of folks CNN found who complained that they were more like Joe Schmuck than Warren Buffett and shouldn't have to pay a "Millionaire's Tax":

Only 24% of millionaires said higher taxes on higher incomes is the fairest way to go, according to recent survey from Spectrem Group, a research firm specializing in finances of affluent Americans. The biggest chunk of millionaires, 44%, think a flat rate tax across all income brackets is the fairest system.

...snip...

One millionaire CNNMoney reader said that for the past five years, his tax rate (including state income taxes) has ranged from 40% to 55% -- which he thinks is more than enough money to be forking over to Uncle Sam.

Uh, Earth to CNN Money reader - taxes going to the state are not going to Uncle Sam. You might also check with the folks making $30K or $40K per year and find out how much they are paying in taxes and fees at all levels.

DoG, but these WATBs do tend to irritate, don't they?

And because I can:

Just How Many Speeches Did Ben Bernanke Give Yesterday?

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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a speech yesterday (Tuesday, June 7) to the International Monetary Conference in Atlanta, GA. Only one speech. Yet looking around the Toobz at the various headlines at news sites on this speech, it must have been an all things to all people speech as I've found at least four different perspectives presented, some of them directly contradictory.

The most prevalent theme appears to be The Benbernank as cheerleader (links embedded in titles):

McClatchy: Jobs report aside, Bernanke sees rosier second half of 2011

LA Times: Bernanke predicts stronger recovery in second half of year

AP via MSNBC: Bernanke sees stronger growth later in the year

Then there are the deficit hawk headline writers:

Jamie Dimon's Move Cost How Much?

Yesterday morning (Friday, April 8), I was doing my regular surfing of news sites, after once again not finding any jobs in my daily job search when I came across this story from Reuters on the pay that JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon received for 2010. The thing that caught my eye most of all however was not the $20.8M in total compensation. Nor was it the $5M cash bonus on top of the $1M cash salary for the year. No, the items that caught my eye were at the bottom of the article on the "perks" Dimon received:

His 2010 compensation also included $579,624 worth of perks, including $421,458 of "moving expenses," $95,293 to use company aircraft and $45,730 for personal automobile use. Most of the rest went toward home security.

Like many Americans who have had trouble selling their homes, Dimon did too. The moving expenses relate to the sale in 2010 of Dimon's Chicago-area home, in which he had lived while heading Bank One Corp that was sold to JPMorgan in 2004.