Wall Street Robber Barrons

$39 billion: The Wall Street bonuses for the big five investment banks last year.

ABC News reports:

In 2007, Wall Street’s five biggest firms — Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley — paid a record $39 billion in bonuses to themselves.

That’s $10 billion more than the $29 billion loan taxpayers are making to J.P. Morgan to save Bear Stearns.

Those 2007 bonuses were paid even though the shareholders in those firms last year collectively lost about $74 billion in stock declines — their worst year since 2002.

These company executives are still fiercely fighting to protect their pay. Politico notes that the Bush Treasury Department is “resisting efforts” by House Democrats “to impose pay limits on Wall Street executives and bankers.”


I think the real answer, is they can pay themselves whatever they want, but people should take all their money out of these companies and never invest in them again. We keep rewarding their selfishness.

That's why the rich keep getting richer and the rest of us suffer.