wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

I'm generally a pretty laid-back person, but that last caller made me want to scream. Goldman execs deserve gigantic bonuses because their business has boomed this year?? Myopic indeed! Goldman might not even EXIST if it weren't for its taxpayer-funded bailout! Arghhhh... My faith in humanity is quickly disintegrating.

hey when those fat cats spend money it's good for the NYC economy. they are going to buy art, dinners in fancy restaurants, nannies to watch their private school educated kids

OMG!! I just cannot believe that some folks actually believe that wall streeters are in some special catagory of hard workers with job insecurity. Are you kidding me! How myopic, how ignorant, how self-centered. If how hard one works and how important ones contribution to society is, and of course the impact of that contribution on our society to be able to work etc. then perhaps we should hand out large bonuses to migrant farm laborers, how about child care workers, oh and what about teachers..... hmmmm....

Don't blame the high bonuses, they are just the icing on a big rotting cake. It wasn't just wall st, but unbridled, unregulated capitalism itself that was being saved. In that sense, the government was saving a fundamental pillar of the American way of life. the few make a lot, the many work for much less. this has always been a top heavy system. the government bows the the $$ market. what's new? give it some more time and this too will be forgotten by too many when they can send more of their time spending spending spending again.

Wall Street Bonuses Approaching $140 Billion !!!

Putting that in perspective would be the equivalent of 140,000 employees each receiving a $1 million bonus ... or one million employees each receiving a $140,000 bonus - not too shabby for a year's work on the Street given the rest of the economy.

I will politely listen to all comments about banker compensation, but there is one comment that every time I hear it makes me want to scream at the radio. These bonuses are not a boon to tax payers because these bonuses are taxed like incom.

Payment on Wall Street is structured the way that it is because it is a giant tax scam. Most Wall Street bonuses are taxed as capital gains, not income. Capital gains are taxed at a far lower rate than income.

The notion that its somehow okay to pay out these huge bonuses is debatable, but to claim that it somehow benefits us all through increased tax collection is just a lie. All of Wall Street is bilking the tax man through a giant loop hole in the way they structure payment.

shareholders have zero control over a corporation!!

I love this continueing argument for trickle down economics that's been around since the Reagan admin. After Reagan was elected unemployment sky rocketed. Unions were forced to stop thier strikes. Paying the rich more has never led to jobs. Paying stupid street higher bonuses will not lead to more jobs. It's never worked. The rich take the money and run! We are not that stupid to believe these falacies any more.

It is myth and lie that the banks have paid back what they have received. Nomi Prins, a former Managing Director of Goldman Sachs, in her recent book It takes A Pillage concludes that taxpayers provided a bailout worth $ 17 trillion. That's TRILLION. Goldman got tens of billions indirectly from AIG which they don't count as TARP money to them. All the investment banks which converted to commercial banks in a legal sleight of hand did so in order to get nearly free money from the Federal Reserve at .5% interest, which they then "lend" to us at 5-8%. This has all been legalized theft, an enormous transfer to the rich, for which we will be paying for generations. Brian, at least bring in Nomi Prins (amongst many possible others) to begin to provide a dose of reality.

When will finally get angry enough to actually do something about this. Somehow I doubt it will happen till we're all too broke to afford cable TV. It's become painfully obvious that our elected representatives do not serve our interest. What's it going to take for the American people to get their heads out of the sand and stand up for themselves?!
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
Thomas Jefferson

If it makes anyone feel any better, we spent more on the Iraq war, which gave huge profits to companies, huge bonuses to the people who worked for them, and pretty much amounted to nothing. Billions just disappeared.

Steve's said that it's the shareholders who should approve or disapprove of bonuses. After the bailouts, aren't the American people the shareholders now?

The sense of Wall Street entitlement is staggering.

Small parts of the banks messed up putting the whole of an entire bank in danger. The whole of a bank got a bail-out, not just the smaller departments. So in my opinion, if any of the bank wants to pay a bonus, the whole of the bank should first pay the bail-out back. Sorry for the hard working employees of the other bank departments that didn't mess up, but they're getting bonuses from the increasingly unemployed tax payer!

those suits aren't cheap

Wall Streeters should do like the rest of us and dip into savings. Whining about deserving or needing bonuses shows how out of touch they are.

it was all a shell game, but shame on us!

I don't think anyone is being dissuaded from going into Wall St. because they will make a $125 K bonus instead of $150 K.

What everyone defending big bonuses on Wall St. is NOT made to remember, is that many would LITERALLY not have a job unless the U.S. government gave them billions to stay afloat.

Wall St. owes the U.S. Federal govt. its life.

WALL STREET MAKES MONEY OFF THE BACK OF OTHERS...

IT DOES NOT DO ANY THING EXCEPT EXPLOIT THE NEED FOR $$$$ BY PEOPLE WHO INVENT AND DO THE WORK...

"Earnings have to start somewhere..." Hahahahaha!! Greedy WS'ers.

Why do earnings have to start with those who already have the most??!!?? And, with those who brought the whole country/western world down?

Why not increase the earnings of those at the bottom/middle: you know, a rising tide carries all boats etc etc. WS'ers continue to spout greedy self-serving platitudes and still can't figure out why the general populace hates them. And no, it's not envy, it's calling greed and selfishness for what it is.

Bravo, Mr. Lehrer!

The bonuses are possible because of the billions we pumped into these companies. They are being paid to people who screwed up.

We effectively (or should) own Citigroup, Bank of America, AIG and several others. We would be the stockholders if not for the shenanigans of Geithner, Bernanke, Paulson and Obama.

There has been a discussion of regulation. The caller, Steven, is simply wrong. But the discussion is now effectively over and Obama and Congress have largely caved to Wall Street.

MANY economists and some politicians have noted this: Simon Johnson, Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Marcy Kaptur, Nouriel Roubini, Michael Hudson,.....

Wall Street took all the money out of the economy and left nothing for anyone to spend!

90% of the money in this country is owned by 10% of the population. There's not much left to run our economy on.

Wall Street hedge fund managers make 19,000 times as much as the average American, for essentially being middle men who produce absolutely nothing tangible. There is simple no logical or ethical rational for their outrageous largess.

GOLDMAN WAS BAILED OUT...

AIG $$$$
TARP $$$$

not to mension that they acess to FED FUNDS

Another genuis. Wow. Steven is delusional.

Spot on Zen!

THOSE people don't work that hard.

It fuels it because it was set up that way. Set it up elsewise.

Smartest people in the business migrated from investment banks to hedge funds years and years ago. If you are still working at an investment fund in 2009 you have some sort of problem. It's not capitalism and it's not interesting, it is profitable but life is short. Hedge funds and private equity is infinitely more profitable and interesting and creative.

james
no, the highest tax rate by the feds is something like 30%

Are these callers for real? I'm a doctor and I would argue I contribute more to society than those jerks on Wall Street (and I work hard), but greed prevails.

Well if they're not making 7 figures then they should be joining in the kvetch session and balance out those 7 figure makers with their own.

EVERYBODY is worried about their jobs right now because of this people!!!!

Everyone else has had to modify their life style bc of the recession, why shouldn't bankers and wall street? Susan try living on less like all of us other hard working people.

"Fairly low base salaries"???

How high is "fairly low"???

dingy! i like it!

poor wall street people, stop picking on them

Why don't you ask your guest about the fact that the banks paid back the TARP funds WITHOUT any interest. Why do they get that benefit. Even if I pay back my mortgage early, I still have to pay the interest.

Get this dingy caller off the air.

Who is this woman. She's as clueless as Ivanka Trump.

One of the hardest working people I've ever known is Bernard Madoff. He gave himself up because he was tired of working so hard.

Bonuses over 10,000 should have an extra tax.

Wah, Wah, Wah!

Gimmie a BREAK!!!

Maybe the government should tax the hell out of these bonuses and use the proceeds to bail out the FDIC or put it towards healthcare for everyone. Slap these guys down.

We should be eating these fat criminals for lunch!!!

Utterly disgusting.

Agreeing with #2, James. But question - did Goldman Sachs ever actually pay back their bailout money? I remember an announcement in the press saying they were planning to, which in what looked like a game of operator started to be reported as they had started to.

Mr. Lehrer left out the 9-figure bonuses people like Lloyd Blankfein will pick up.

How is this okay?

Why is this still an issue? How come the government can give our money away to these incompetent, greedy people without placing restrictions on it?

It's utterly ridiculous.

Aren't those high-flying bonuses very highly taxed by local, state, and feds? So maybe officials like the revenue, despite the bad smell.

greed always wins!