Keeping up with the Goldmans

Even the Economist is chiming in on Goldman’s record-setting profits, and this journal can hardly be claimed to be in the bastion of liberals, aka “socialists” and “communists” to the GOP.

In the shorter term, the bank needs to worry about a possible backlash against its incongruously generous pay policies. For the year to date it set aside $11.4 billion for compensation and benefits, more even than in the halcyon first half of 2007. Its ratio of pay to revenues continues to hover near the dizzying 50% level that was the norm on Wall Street before the meltdown.

For a firm that probably would have collapsed without government capital, debt guarantees and fast-track approval to turn itself into a commercial bank (not to mention a multi-billion-dollar payout as a counterparty of American International Group), such largesse is cheeky at best, distasteful at worst.

via American finance: Keeping up with the Goldmans | The Economist.

Goldman Sachs Made $2 Billion Since March

Analysts: Goldman Sachs Made $2 Billion Since March

Economic analysts are predicting Goldman Sachs has earned a staggering $2 billion since March. The bank’s stock value has soared 68 percent this year, and analysts predict the bank will pay a total of $18 billion in compensation and benefits this year—that’s an average of more than $600,000 per employee. Goldman Sachs has been a major beneficiary of the government’s bank bailout program. Last year the Bush administration quietly funneled $13 billion to Goldman Sachs as part of the bailout of the failed insurance giant AIG. The government also gave Goldman Sachs $28 billion in low-interest loans.

via Democracy Now! | Headlines for July 13, 2009.