Wall Street Rank-and-File to Join 99.99999%

The wake of the banking crash in 2008 has been nothing more than a tempestuous riverbed of whitewash and merciless, rushing water. Since the banking crisis took place, leading to the bailout of the planet’s major power brokers, the whole world’s economy has been beat down and tattered causing a de facto expatriation of world citizens from the real economy into the gray economy, where government regulation and unfair and sharkish banking and lending practices alienate basically everybody from their own wealth.

Wall Street is even being alienated from its own wealth, revealing the Street for what it is as a front for greater gangster powers.  But, as Occupy rejoices, CNN noted today that, quite soon, the 99% would soon have new members : the victims over at Goldman Sachs. According to CNN Money, “the average compensation at Goldman is likely to fall by nearly $100,000 by the end of next year as new regulations, fewer deals and legal payouts hurt the firm’s profitability.” So, the 99% is getting their way.  Wall Street has been Occupied and wealth is in the process of being redistributed, but whose wealth will be redistributed? Goldman’s annual pay just two years ago, from IT to CEO Lord Blankfein, averaged $412,000.  Lord Blankfein himself made $12 million. The most common salary is $127,000.

Wall Street cites bank regulations and capital requirements  as the reason for banks to switch to a grocery store model of getting rid of the bottom line – the people. But, these banks do not succumb to the regulations. Only small banks on the outside, lookin’ in, succumb. More than half of the top 25 US banks aren’t earning enough to cover their cost of capital, and you can be sure Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citi Group, Bank of America and Wells Fargo are in the black. Especially if you consider theft one of their financial products.

So Wall Street wants less capital to operate their diminishing return ponzi scheme. The institutions had a near death experience in 2008 and they want the return of that high. There’s nothing like almost dying in a sea of  gobbledygook derivatives only to be saved by the chimera of state-enterprise intervention and the murdering-before-birth of future generations.

The media runs with the storyline of class warfare. How original. But they are tongue-and-cheek about it.  After all, the salary decrease will knock the average Goldmanite all the way down to near the bottom of the top 2% of all US earners. The cutoff for the 98% tops out at around $290,000. CNN evokes common sense and admits that “this is not nearly the crushing blow to the Masters of the Universe that some hoped the financial crisis would be.”

In 2008, the meme of a Wall Street collapse permeated the culture.  According to CNN, “the fact that the government had to come to the rescue, would force financial firms to rethink how, and how much, they pay their employees.” Washington even had to hire a pay czar to drink the champagne of bribing bankers. The banks ran with the free money, partaking in a number of cover-up dances with the US government pretending to return the original loan amounts, although nobody’s gonna publicly mark that to market. We’ll keep that marked to model, the theft model.

Goldman’s return on equity, according to The Morgue, is set to fall down to 10% from 17%  in the near-term and fall beyond that over time.  And so, Goldman is cutting employees salaries so as to lower costs and return to profitability. The  High Speed Frequency Trading Bots are set to take over the jobs of some 4,400 people from its investment banking division, who are set to lose their jobs. In fact, by just the first quarter of this year, Goldman’s staff had already shrunk by 2,000 in the past year. Whereas in the war universe the drone bombs  takeover life and death, in finance the algos will sheathe the sheep.

So, who are these one percenters that CNN purports are losing out? Are we talking about evil bankers up-on-high who are rigging the global economy so as to more efficiently extract wealth from the taxpayer? Are  we talking about greedy business men busily working their lives away in order to build up their own bank accounts like booty for the grave? Or are we talking about generally young-to-middle age workers with little true vested interest in overall markets? Are we talking about the sort of worker burdened by his or her own assignments analyzing market products based on overarching GS formulas? And, perhaps, are we talking about a worker who doesn’t truly understand the way things are in their markets.

I think we are talking about the latter. According to CNN, these are the folks who work at Goldman Sachs:

The most common job salary at Goldman Sachs pays $127,000. That’s pretty good pay, even for a position that forces one to analyze the anally-smuggled drugs of the securities industry. According to the website Glassdoor, which allows one to peruse ratings of respective work places, former and current Goldman Sachs employees are “satisfied.” Me, personally, I have learned that settling for satisfaction is a disease inoculated by the doldrums of state-life: this ain’t no picnic so we’re just happy to survive each day.

Here is a list of pros and cons contributed by former and current employees of the 1% bank. The first “pro” had got it right, by telling of the “good pay during market up times” practice at Goldman Sachs. Considering the plight of the US stock market and the entire paper tiger slaveship, Goldman Sachs can expect good pay to be a thing of the past.

Pros – Best people to work with;
Good pay during market up times;
Good career avancement opportunities if you do well;

Cons – The salary is tiny compared to other positions in my field. The firm has relied on its brand name and the promise of large bonuses to draw people, but both of those have failed to deliver in the past few years, and show no signs of recovering in the near future.

Some are concerned about missing out on life, sitting all day everyday going gray in hair-and-spirit at a Goldman Sachs desk. There’s just no life when you succumb yourself to work for others so removed by the tyranny of distance.

Cons – Very bad work life balance, expect to work long hours, weekends and holidays. Generally difficult to take time off and you are often tied to your phone when you are out of office responding to emails.

Cons – – political. your manager will probably spend more time to manage upwards rather than looking after you.

Pros – Smart people, good amount of work

Cons – Sitting at a desk for long periods of time.

Pros – The 200 West Street building is very new, and very modern. By comparison, most other office buildings seem shabby.

Cons – Long work hours affects work life balance

Pros – There are still some great people at GS who embody the old culture and values of teamwork and making decisions based on what’s right for the project vs. what actions will lead to a faster promotion.

Cons – The culture has shifted to one where only self-serving people are in positions of power, making short-term personal greedy rewarded and the norm.

Cons – They work you too hard, people are very competitive

Cons – Long hours.
Office politics.
Mentor program requires a lot of extra time away from family.
Community Team Works program is hard work

Can you taste the discontent? It’s actually a great thing that Wall Street is going to start cutting the pay of their workers. Not that I want these individuals to suffer, that’s not the case. Rather, I want them to question why they are devoting their lives to people who don’t stand by their word, don’t follow any kind of ethical guidebook when it comes to business, and have sold them out so entirely.