The days of outrageous Wall Street bonuses may be limited, depending on your definition of outrageous, of course. A recent Bloomberg story reported that Morgan Stanley, the owner of the world’s biggest brokerage, is capping cash bonuses at $125,000 and is deferring more compensation for senior level executives.
The scrape over AIG bonuses is an indication of the core problems of the current financial crisis—a complete lack of due diligence, a reliance on the fact that no one is paying attention and a media and public attention span of a two year old.
How else can Congress and the Administration express shock over these bonuses that were known beforehand. Futures Publisher Ginger Szala blogged back in January regarding AIG bonuses yet those whose job it was to look over the details of the various government sponsored bailouts express shock and anger!
A clip from CNN.com on Congress’ outrage at Wall Street bonuses:
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Friday defended corporate bonuses, saying that cutting them also means slashing jobs in the Big Apple.
“If you somehow take that bonus out of the economy, it really will create unemployment,” he said on CNN’s “American Morning.” “It means less spending in restaurants, less spending in department stores, so everything has an impact.”
Who knew TARP money was to be put back into the economy through bonuses?
