Weekend Wars: Bankers vs. Everybody Else
It seems to be the talk of the town, country and now even the world. The OWS movement though not moving much more efficiently than a dog chasing its own tail, has certainly remained the hot topic and does not yet seem ready to go away. Though the hipsters, union cronies and "community organizers" have not been coherent or succinct in what they really want, one thing is certain:
It is the bankers fault.
Art major not opening doors at Google. The banker's fault. Broke ass can't buy round for party of one. The banker's fault. Haven't rolled a functional vehicle of the assembly lines in thirty years. The banker's fault. Everything that is wrong in America today. The banker's fault.
So I thought it might be fun to actually crunch a few numbers and see what we come up with. The following graphic displays the income disparity between the securities industry and all other private sector industries in New York City over the last thirty years.
In 2010, the average salary in the industry was $361,330- five and a half times the average salary in the rest of the private sector in the city ($66,120). By contrast, 30 years ago such salaries were only twice as high as in the rest of the private sector.
The painted picture is quite disingenuous, if left to sit on its own bar graph merits. Saying that the average securities professional in New York City earns $360K/year is very close in logic to the argument that the top 1% make over $250K/year. Yes, this numerical average may be accurate, but it certainly does not represent the reality of earnings. Much like the vaunted 1%, Wall Street's numbers are very top heavy. It only takes a couple of Lloyd's and Jamie's pulling in tens of millions per year to decidedly skew the numbers upwards. It only takes one hedge fund manager on a hot year to blow the numbers out of the water.
The same is true on the opposite end of the spectrum. The rest of the private sector in the city, hmm...how quaintly nebulous. You mean like the McDonald's bucket boy private sector? Or the Duane Reade label gun firing squad private sector? Or better yet the, I drive a cab and depend on the same bankers and traders I bitch about all day to support me private sector?
I am never surprised by idiots making bogus claims, but when the paper of record publishes this kind of bullshit I am reminded of how detached from reality our supposed intellectual class has become. Then again why make a fair and impartial argument when you can be a professional demagogue and neo socialist.
But alas, who am I to ask The New York Times to be fair and impartial. There is after all, an agenda to push. Good thing all of you guys feast on the blood of fetuses and rape Bambi at work every day. Not like anyone who does not wallow in their own shit, whining for more welfare cheese is human.
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-09/politics/30259696_1_prot…
This is probably the best discussion on what's going on. Listen to what Herman Cain says about hard work -- if you are Democrat, GOP, or whatever. You will be appalled what Occupy Wall Street zombies are saying on Facebook. Occupy the local homecoming, occupy that. This country is turning into a big joke.
I like Cain's comment about OWS being a populist distraction by Obama...whether he is right or not, Obama will dickride OWS into a second term.
I don't know man, I think Obama associating himself with these guys is a bad move. Use them to drive your base, but don't tie yourself with these guys.
The people protesting are the people who voted for Obama a couple years ago. The majority of American's are not blind. Obama's failed politics have done nothing to help this country.
This is going to be a tight race, no doubt. Obama might win (god help us if he does), but more importantly, the Republicans have a great chance of taking the Senate. If that happens, even if Obama wins, the Republicans will force feed him legislation and Obama will either not sign it or eventually move towards a path that will actually help this nation.
OWS is 100% Obama created and driven.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/re-elect-obama/
Hahahah. Maybe these guys aren't that bad after all.
"Obama is Osama. Third generation CIA operative active in the Af-Pak theater in the 80s. Coincidences are not accidents. Wake up."
hahahahaha
Btw, the only two real reasonable arguments for OWS I have seen are:
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry… http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc111010.htm
Shame the smelly hippie's cannot use the same of facts and #s. In either case you can see both writers blame big government and not just the evil banker dudes.
Crazy data....
Eh... your argument that securities professionals don't actually make that much flies in the face of the thread just above this on the front page of the site:
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/do-traders-get-paid-this-much
According to that discussion, twenty-somethings of mediocre intelligence are still pulling in nearly a million a year..
You jelly?
The issues these OWSers are protesting (corporate welfare, lack of jobs) are all linked to the very government they are trying to expand.
Businesses are afraid to deploy capital in a ridiculously uncertain tax and regulatory environment. The potential burden of Obamacare alone is a good reason not to expand payroll. The temporary tax cuts might look stimulative, but they have introduced a significant amount of uncertainty into the economy.
The asset bubbles of the past decade can all be linked to government incentives. Obama has tried to repeat the mistakes of the past by forcing banks to lend to people in disadvantaged areas, claiming racial discrimination. Sound like the CRA?
Inequality is increasing, but Obama is not about to fix it. Look at his proposal to prevent employers from considering employment status in hiring decisions. Employers won't even consider the unemployed if they risk a lawsuit; we will see the same backlash the we did with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Come on now... no decently intelligent person could possibly believe that uncertainty crap could they? I can understand making this argument if you're trying to act like a retarded neo-conservative in front of your boss, I do it too, but seriously, the uncertainty argument is complete ideological garbage. A republican president could have instituted the exact same policies and said the exact same things and no one would be complaining about uncertainty.
The same would hold true if a republican did it. Generally I am in favor of the libertarian response to a recession: do as little as possible while the economy deleverages / clears out the waste. The issue with the last crisis was that the financial system was bordering on collapse, which would have cratered the entire economy. Then again, it was DC that fueled the asset bubble in the first place...
I am not saying I know what should have been done. I am just skeptical of government intervention being the correct response to a crisis caused largely by government policies. I think of the collapse of Lehman: the government set a precedent by rescuing Bear, which in turn led Lehman to believe that it didn't need to delever immediately.
Government keeps fucking shit up yet we keep wanting it to get bigger and interfere with even more.
Cognitive dissonance on an epic scale.
So, what happens when atlas shrugs?
Atlas is shrugging, my friend. The idiots bringing in these big checks are not John Galts. They are the corporate clowns Rand despised. The genius is somewhere out there right now either struggling to get cash for their startup or trying in some way to fix the system.
Atlas is shrugging, my friend. The idiots bringing in these big checks are not John Galts. They are the corporate clowns Rand despised. The genius is somewhere out there right now either struggling to get cash for their startup or trying in some way to fix the system.
Atlas is shrugging, my friend. The idiots bringing in these big checks are not John Galts. They are the corporate clowns Rand despised. The genius is somewhere out there right now either struggling to get cash for their startup or trying in some way to fix the system.
You fail to realize one thing. Whether you are an idiot or a John Galt, when you are paying taxes you are supporting the "world". More and more people are dependent on less and less tax payers.
One day the tax payers will shrug and stop working to feed someone else.
Do you people seriously manage to forget how unemployed you would be if there was no bailout?
Modi voluptatibus ut alias magni sed tenetur. Ex et reprehenderit doloremque temporibus et rerum.
Voluptatem suscipit perferendis porro quod aut. Qui laboriosam hic mollitia ex ut.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...