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Lucas,
It's bonus season on Wall Street. The big banks and firms that crashed our economy are doling out millions to high-rolling CEOs, stock traders and hedge fund managers.
What are they doing to make so much money?
Absurdly, they're using the same high-risk financial gimmicks that crashed our economy back in 2008.
Sign the petition to stop Wall Street from rewarding itself for making more trouble.
JPMorgan Chase's CEO, Jamie Dimon, is expected to bring home more than $17.5 million.(1)
Lloyd Blankfein, the infamous CEO of Goldman Sachs, got $13.2 million.(1)
Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman raked in $15 million.(1)
It may be hard to believe, but by Wall Street standards, these are historically low compared to pre-crisis payouts. Blankfein alone got $70 million in 2007.(2) And CEOs are not necessarily even the highest paid employees at these firms.
Meanwhile, the median income for working Americans in 2005 was $28,567.(3) (More recent census data are not yet available; one can imagine the impact of the economic crisis has not been good).
The bottom line is that the American economy is still struggling to recover. We can't afford to have banksters paying themselves millions to make things worse.
Sign the petition to end Wall Street's risky pay practices:
www.citizen.org/wall-street-pay-petition
Thanks for all you do,
Rick Claypool
Public Citizen's Online Action Team
action@citizen.org
1. "Taking Stock," Public Citizen fact sheet. (PDF)
http://www.citizen.org/documents/Executive-Compensation-20110208.pdf
2. Jacob Bernstein, "Lloyd Blankfein's Bittersweet Journey." The Daily Beast
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-05-02/lloyd-blankfeins-bittersweet-journey/
3. U.S. Census Bureau, median income for total labor force
http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032006/perinc/new05_001.htm |
