And the rich get richer, again.
While Minions worry about money for Retirement (53%) and the next meal (42%), Wall Street/Greed Street is boosting compensation to near record levels. Goldman Sachs will dole out an average of $700k per employee — twice the payout from last year. And CitiBank, a TARP recipient, is boosting employees base pay by up to 50%. But how can that be? Didn’t the Obama administration impose pay limits on companies that received TARP assistance? Yes and no.
The administration issued regulations in June that limited bonuses to no more than a third of annual salaries. But it didn’t impose regulations on base salaries. So bonuses are going down and base compensation is going up.
So you run into Citi’s CEO at a BBQ. Go ahead and dream for a minute. Got any feedback you’d want him to hear?