You're out of the current decade, still calling people brah. Either put up facts to back your claim, or move on. Let's keep this discussion rolling.
Here is what I think is a real example. My son makes X dollars per year. He also receives a 10% "bonus" if he stays in his department for the entire year. He gets the 10% regardless of the company's profitability, so it is considered part of his salary, but it is deferred for 12 months. It may be semantics, but when applying for a home loan, the 10% is accepted as part of his salary even though it is called a "bonus".
Many of us get paid off "a piece of the book" - meaning our trading p+l is calculated separately and at the end of the year we get a prearranged percentage of the profits we make. If we make no profits, this piece is zero. If you lose money, you get nothing and you might get fired. If the company kicks ass and your manager thinks you had an "off year" you may get a small retention bonus, but thats not too common. If you lose money two years in a row, you're let go 99.9% of the time. The larger the agreed-to percentage, the smaller your base. I know guys whose base salaries are lower than their receptionists, but consistently make huge bank bc they get such a large chunk of their books. This percentage, which some would call "commission", is paid out as your annual bonus.
This is scary stuff. While I side with DD on BS side of the whole tax payers paying bonuses to employees of a company that should be bankrupt, this crap is crazy. The whole reason there is a problem here is the guberment didn't take time to think through legislation in the first place. Now the guberment is going to do the same thing again, only this time they are attacking people without any regard to guilt or innocence. The guberment doesn't care to do this right, they are just throwing legislation on the wall to see what sticks. If the government is allowed tax people retroactively as some kind of moral punishment, this will set a really BAD precedent. We are entering some very scary times.
Another thing to consider is that we supposed to be trying to HELP the TARP'd companies. This law clearly hurts them. If you want to kill off the TARP'd companies, then why did ya do the TARP? A lot of people will just move to hedge funds, which are completely unregulated and received no TARP funds.
It doesn't even look like this thing is going to pass. Probably because a few smart people have the same concerns we do. It's not that scary.
The base is still low. These guys work on commissions and how much money they can bring to the book. Bonuses are what these people rely on to make the best money they can in the finance and banking industry. Nobody is working in finance to just take home their 125k salary.
According to Gore's global warming scenario, New York will be underwater in a few years anyway. Maybe this will be the incentive to scatter New Yorkers all over the country to places where $125K is a decent income -- and to where they don't have to be so tempted to screw the American marketplace just to survive. The only downside is that we will kick over another roach nest of urban criminals like we did in NOLA in the aftermath of Katrina. But then again, who would root for the Kenosha Knickerbockers (Knicks of the sticks)? Or the Gulfport Giants? Or the Jamestown Jets? Or the Rapid City Rangers? Or the Newport Nets?
No, you're right, but describing a bonus in this way, in this context, appears to ignore the fact that those bonuses are a very large percentage of their compensation. And it is taken for granted that it's that way. This proposal has a heck of a lot of people freaked out. Even those who wouldn't be affected. They want this to go away, very badly.
I know salaries, and cost of living, in NYC are high. But the median salary in that city is still well under 100k. And 125k is still a good amount of money. I understand the frustration with the government's taxation, but don't tell me that 125k is a pittance, or that a family can't make ends meet on 250k. Not when there are so many people suffering right now in this economy.
Not that I don't give NYC grief whenever I can (because it's fun ), is your median salary figure taking into account places like the Bronx?
125k is certainly NOT a pittance, I don't think this is about whether 250k is good enough, this is about tax someone at 90% when they have earned that money.
I'm no expert, I just googled it and found the following site. Specific to Manhattan. http://www.payscale.com/research/US/City=Manhattan/Salary
I'm sure no one will mind. The Congresssmen will have shown their constituencies that they're fighting the big, bad Wallstreet guys, so they should be re-elected.
