Score(s)!
Now we understand what real estate agents were all jazzed about. “Gigantic bags” of money in some of the largest Wall Street Christmas bonuses ever:
Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs is set to throw gigantic bags of money at its bankers, traders and stockbrokers this year — lavishing them with more than $16.5 billion in bonus loot, the most ever doled out by a Wall Street firm.
Most of the Wall Street trading houses had a great year — but Goldman’s was spectacular, and its blockbuster numbers generated blockbuster bonuses for the fat cats.
Between regular salary and bonuses, the average pay of Goldman employees will be a mind-numbing $622,000 this year – and that includes all the low-end workers.
At the top end of the pay scale, it has been reported that Goldman was likely to pay a “golden 25” managers, bankers and traders at least a cool $25 million each.
But a source close to the firm told The Post that some of the top performers may actually get four times that.
The $100 million bonus babies are in charge of making big bets with Goldman’s money on the direction of the prices of commodities, including oil and natural gas. And this year, they won big.
. . .
Goldman’s profits this year — after the bonuses — climbed 70 percent to $9.5 billion, up from $5.6 billion last year.
This prompted its chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, to leave a voice-mail message for employees cautioning them not to be “irrational or arrogant” to ensure no damage to the firm’s reputation.
Blankfein might be tempted to be a bit “irrational” himself, with Goldman sources telling The Post that he is likely to rake in at least $50 million in bonus cash.
Last year, his predecessor, current Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, get a measly $40 million.
The bonus money the firm will dispense is going to prime the city’s economy as lucky recipients buy fast cars, big apartments and luxury goods.
In October, state Comptroller Alan Hevesi said Wall Street’s wealthy workers earned an average of $289,664, or about 5 times as much as other employees in New York City last year.
Irrational and arrogant? Nah . . .
(Alternate post title: “Jesus Fucking Christ That’s A Lot Of Money”.)
From the Assignment Desk: Small sidebar piece on how much more traffic the Goldman Sachs careers page got today.
Posted: December 13th, 2006 | Filed under: Class War