Giving EVERY single one of their employees a 700K and up bonus. In most years I would say hey listen that's how it is. They returned cash borrowed and they can do what they will with their money. That being said why don't they use those bonuses[remember many places are still laying off and freezing pay] to give back to help create jobs as our unemployment rates touches 10%--most GS employees have been there for years--I think they could deal with 75K-100K for a year and put the rest into a pool to create maybe 5-10k jobs? The very wealthiest of people and corporations have to step up and PAY back to a country that helped them where they got to. I don't see one reason why someone should have more than 15 B $--what can you buy after that? Does 78 year old cheap geezer Warren Buffet need to hoard his 50B just to say he has it? Or should he give 30B away while he is alive for the better good of humanity. My wife and I give 10-25k to charity every single year for the past 10 years. I'm not a flea on Warren Buffet's shoe but I try to help out every year and I think there should be much more of it--especially from people who can make a big difference TODAY--people need jobs housing and food TODAY---these people ned to act now for the better good. Why should 10 of thousand of kids in the US go to bed in shelters HUNGRY and you have an old man who BY HIMSELF could change that fact. I wish we had a President who came in and had a special one time 20% tax on everyone with assets over 1B. Why should such a small % of the population hold so much of the wealth? I agree with capitalism but I think there needs to be CAPS put in place. I know that if you had something like 7-10mm in net assets--you can have multiple houses live comfortably--go and come as you please pay for kids colleges the works---then why do people need Billions? And that of course is the high side--most people dont have that--there has to be a point where personal wealth is capped

couldn't agree more, but this is the finance sector. Most of the people in that company and in the sector believe they deserve vastly more wealth than everyone else, which is simply not true. They're just getting an allocation of the cash concentration. The purpose of finance is to facilitate the growth of the real economy. But it's just not how it works out. Whoever controls the cash calls the shots. I wish they would legislate and make it illegal to bank and speculate (trade) within the same institution. Then you'd see less of this and more even spread of cash throughout the economy and perhaps some growth in green technology and energy storage or anything that'll give the country a competitive advantage or anything that'll get math/science/engineering students jobs or create incentive for educational pursuit in those subjects.

Great post. COuld not have said it better.

Posted by mosquito:

The reason they make so much money is because they leverage their assets to no end. As asset prices have fallen they have gotten into quite a mess, but the FED and Treasury stepped up and bailed them out with taxpayer money and other gimmicks. Now they are taking that money and speculating with it by buying every class of assets when most other people don't have the capital to compete. As they suck all the people into believing that the recession is over, they will be selling their recently purchased assets into the buying frenzy they are creating. This is one way banks recapitalize themselves with the helping hand of government. We were told that the banks would be lending the money the FED is lavishing them at 0% interest, but that story is as false as the earth is flat. They are speculating with it to artificially drive up asset prices which the FED applauds.

Salaries remain high because the last thing government wants to see is wage deflation in Wall St salaries. It will signal deflationary forces through the rest of the food chain, and this will be bad for a government trying to re-inflate the economy.

This is quite an experiment that is taking place, never before undertaken in this magnitude. I hope it works, but deep down I think it's gonna fail. Eventually the people will catch on that privatizing the gains, and socializing the losses is not a good formula for the middle class existence.

Not everyone of their employees. Most of their employees won't sniff 100K. Its the average bonus thought (always gets skewed by the top performers making multimillions).