$500,000 Bonus for employees (Goldman Sachs)

Please, Sir, I Want Some More.
How Goldman Sachs is carving up its $11 billion money pie

It’s like buying a gift for the guy who has everything: What can you do to impress the boss for whom you’ve already been pulling all-nighters and all-weekenders? That’s the dilemma faced by thousands of investment bankers in New York every fall, when bonus season gets under way. Starting sometime after Labor Day and ending before Christmas, everybody in the financial industry is on their best, most obsequious behavior, hoping to curry the favor of those who divvy up the spoils. And what spoils there are this year—the 2005 bonus season looks to be Wall Street’s biggest haul in five years. Last year, the New York State Comptroller’s office estimated the average bonus on Wall Street to be a clean $100,600 (or $15.9 billion split among 158,000 employees). Early estimates of the 2005 bonus pool reach as high as $19 billion.

Typically, Goldman Sachs’s announcement of its third-quarter results kicks the bonus season into high gear. Long revered for being where the serious money gets made, the firm has had a blowout year even by its own standards. Announcing a record profit in the third quarter, Goldman also noted that it had set aside $9.25 billion, almost $420,000 per employee, in compensation. When fourth-quarter results are factored in, that total could swell to an $11 billion pool, or $500,000 per employee.

Naturally, money on Wall Street is not shared equally, not even close. Most Goldman employees will receive a good deal less than half a mil, while a few will make an ungodly amount more. It’s simply a matter of how much more. Is that guy on the commodities desk who bet right every time on the price of oil worth $20 million this year—or $25 million? Maybe it’s worth taking $5 million out of the pocket of that old-school investment banker who couldn’t close that simple snack-food takeover deal. Maybe it’s time he was sent a clear signal about the weight he’s been failing to pull.


(Edited to remove too many paragraphs)

http://www.nymetro.com/nymetro/news/bizfinance/biz/features/15197/

How much more out of touch can these people be!!??? And here I'm worried about keeping the heat turned down to the point my kids have to wear jackets in the house. *uckers!

I am worried about my heating oil bill - and these guys are making obscene amts of money. I used to commute into NYC with an older guy at one of the smaller brokerages. The last year I travelled home with him before the Xmas break he ad a direct deposit receipt for $700,000. I cannot imagine what i would do with that - and he gets that or a similar amount every year!

Altho - seeing what pro athletes get for basically being dumb jocks, nothing surprises me any more

it is all about buying access. I work with these guys daily. Many of them are the cockiest assholes you could ever meet.

and while i would like more (who wouldn't) it is a nice thank you. these huge bonus amounts are obscene and disguisting. they could be doing a lot of good with that money: feed some children, pay some heating bills....

I need to get over to Wall Street.

I have never, ever gotten a bonus from any company I've ever worked for.

Maybe it's time to look at changing careers.

The employees are paid a bonus based on profits. Big profits=big bonuses. Law firms work in much the same way, as do a host of other businesses.

tank and left us stranded at the side of the road with no cell signal. They make nothing, they do nothing, and they get paid for it. The mafia should be so smart.