Wow.

Dissociation from reality so complete it borders on schizophrenic.

"The government wants me to be a slave!" says one hedge-fund analyst.

No, no, no. I think we all just want you to go away. Go Galt--please. Find some quarter of Upstate or Idaho and wait for society to come to its senses, and call you, beg you to come back.

Might want to take a few sacks of beans to live on while you're waiting, though.

"It's fair to say you ran your companies into the ground, your risk management is flawed -- that is perfectly legitimate. You can lay criticism on GM or others. But I don’t think it's fair to say Wall Street is paid too much.""

Wrong,wrong,wrong,wrong......on sooooo many levels.

Wall Street got "paid" so much because it was juking the system. It's not like they were making SUVs that suddenly became dinosaurs. THESE guys cooked up a system of fraudulent bullshit and dropped the rest of us in it.

Raised taxes should be the last these asshole Wall Street boys are worried about. My pitchfork is over and ready to go.

Attention Wall Street Jackass: I would be more than happy to try to "scrape by" on several TIMES what I currently make.

Hey. They are entitled. Just ask them.

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didnt you?
Peopled call, say, beware doll, youre bound to fall
You thought they were all kiddin you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin out
Now you dont talk so loud
Now you dont seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
-Bob Dylan

And another thing: Anyone who believes that no one has a problem when A-Rod makes $300 million for playing baseball has obviously never spent five minutes listening to sports talk radio. Fans have been complaining bitterly about sports salaries for decades.

They don't get the fact ..that they didn't produce a fucking thing...just shuffled numbers around on an LCD screen ..a shell game that brought us to ruin. Did you see the douchebag 401 K lobbyist on 60 minutes ..well he said "that's too bad that those people lost all their retirement savings they knew there was risk." There will be a special place in hell for people like him and the "poor" Wall Street workers in the New Yorker article.

LMAO @ all the whiny WallSt losers telling everyone else to eat cake.

As John R above notes, these idiots didn't produce one damn thing. Their entire industry exists SOLELY to enable other industries to function more efficiently. By themselves they have no utility. But all these Masters of the Universe morons think that they everyone else is beholden to them, when it is actually the other way around. And the moment they stop functioning FOR US, is the moment at which they no longer have ANY USE to our economy, and they need to be compensated commensurately. Jackasses.

You can't live in New York and have kids and send them to school on $75,000

They'd have to attend (gasp!) public school, surrounded by children of a rather duskier hue. Can't have that.

"No one complains when Julia Roberts pulls down $25 million per movie or A-Rod has a $300 million guarantee." -An ingrown hair on the nutsack of society

Nobody complains about Julia Roberts or A-Rod making dozens and hundreds of millions of dollars BECAUSE THEY MANAGE TO DO IT WITHOUT STEALING THE MONEY FROM US AND BRAGGING ABOUT WHAT BIG SWINGING FUCKING DICKS THEY ARE.

At least when Osama Bin Laden destroyed a chunk of New York and the American economy, he didn't claim it was for our own motherfucking good - and that we should keep paying him and his pals millions of fucking dollars.

They don't get that it's their fault we had a financial meltdown.

They don't get that they got paid all that money not because they were good, but because they were lucky.

*****

Given human nature, by the way, none of us should be surprised that those responsible for causing the mess are having some trouble accepting that they are at fault. It's pretty common.

It sounds like they are starting to realize that the gravy train has derailed and there will be no return. Now we know how they were making their money and the access to investment funds will be on a lot tighter leash until forgetfulness allows another round of deregulated gambling. Wall Street salaries will be half what they were in 2006 for at least the next 10 years. I think they know that.

I work for a company that would be dead without the TARP money.

One of the junior workers is constantly complaining about 'when is someone going to help me with my mortgage? how come no one is helping me?'

Go back and read my first paragraph.

I try and explain to him that he is being helped more than most anyone else because his entire paycheck is due to the government.

We got billions in TARP money. I am grateful that some of that money is flowing directly to me. I wish everyone else at the company also realized that we are very lucky that we were bailed out.

Poor babies. How sad to realize that the world does not revolve around you. But I guess it's better to become an adult at whatever age they are now than to stay eternally trapped in adolescence like George W.

Let's kill a few traders and see if they're still complaining about taxes.

We don't even need to kill them. Just conscript them to fight in Afghanistan so some productive citizen with children can come home.

"No one complains when Julia Roberts pulls down $25 million per movie or A-Rod has a $300 million guarantee."

That's because these celebrity paydays are financed with private dollars, not a deduction from my paycheck. But us little people also enjoy the big-dollar bombs. When the Yankees, with a payroll that's more like a small nation's GDP, didn't make the playoffs last year there was much celebration across the nation. This was not out of pure schadenfreude, but a sense that talent should win out and rich people shouldn't buy themselves a championship.

Besides if this guy wants to be payed like a celebrity, he should make people want to see him, not hide away in anonymity and expect to rake in cash.

>"No one complains when Julia Roberts pulls down $25 million per movie or A-Rod has a $300 million guarantee."

Hmmm. He obviously didn't ask me.

Nor would I be surprised if a sizable percentage of the population share my opinion that compensation like this is a blight on the planet.

"I'm not giving to charity this year!

LOL. Word has it he is this years charity. I'm donating, but I sure as hell don't want to.

The year after Babe Ruth hit 60 homeruns he signed for $75.000. When a sportswriter asked him how he felt about making more money than the President of the United States he said, "I had a better year than he did,"

No one complains when Julia Roberts pulls down $25 million per movie

If Julia Roberts makes several poor career choices in a row, her box office asking price plummets -- her "comeback," if she is lucky enough got get one, will not come from government bailouts. It will come from private investors taking a calculated risk.

You assholes produce nothing, you contribute NOTHING, all earnings are llusory, temporary and enjoyed by a very privileged few, while employees, taxpayers, and even most shareholders are left to clean up your shit.

A lax regulatory structure and an instant gratification culture have enabled your infantile and profligate behavior. Your "brilliant" financial parlor games are over for now (they'll be back, unfortunately).

Please pardon the rest of us little people for enjoying a bit of temporary schadenfreude.

You aren't even close to receiving fair karmic payback yet. In fact, WE are the ones receiving karmic payback for our roles in enabling your corrupt and ultimately pointless pursuits.

Raising taxes to pre-Bush levels is a mere slap on the wrist. Even raising them to pre-Reagan levels would be a knuckle rap.

"free market" based salaries??

Not really...

For a number of firms, the shareholders do NOT determine salaries/benefits--or even know the what they are. Board members, and boards may be stacked by the current CEO, will defer compensation to separate compensation committees (aka friends of CEO???), leading to what may amount to gross overpayments. I don't have the resources to fully investigate/flesh this out--but it's the underlying problem in current corporate goverance.

"You can't live in New York and have kids and send them to school on $75,000,"

OK. Move to Little Rock or Meridian or Casper. Sell insurance. You'll live like a pharaoh on $75K and your kids will be just fine.

" 'When people ask me for money, I tell them, 'If you want me to give you money, send a letter to my senator asking for my taxes to be lowered'."

Only problem with that twisted logic, is that EVERY TIME tax rates for the Rich & Corporate have been lowered, they gave LESS to charity, as a percentage of their income.

Asshole.

I live & work on Wall Street. A lot of what's in this post is true: it's very very hard to live w/ children in Manhattan for $1 Mil. At public companies no less! (IMHO, 8-figure bonuses at a public company are, de facto, fraud perpetrated on the shareholders by their Board.)

ps: What Wall Street Bankers do has nothing in common w/ what Julia Roberts or A-Rod do.

I live & work on Wall Street. A lot of what's in this post is true: it's very very hard to live w/ children in Manhattan for less than $150K.

The point is, though, we're not talking about people making $150K -- we're talking about an entire subclass of (mostly) glorified salesmen and (mostly) mediocre managers making anywhere from 5 Mil - 50 Mil per year, and dipshit know-nothing 25-year old fledgling MBAs making 1+ Mil. At public companies no less! (IMHO, 8-figure bonuses at a public company are, de facto, fraud perpetrated on the shareholders by the Board.

ps: What they do has nothing in common w/ what Julia Roberts or A-Rod do.

I complain when Julia Roberts is paid $25 million to do a movie, or when A-Rod gets a $300 mill guarantee. It's just that no one ever listens to me.

I have no problem w/ Julia Roberts making $25 Million. A-Rod: whole 'nother story.

It's the psychology of the self centered. I work for a company that was once a Wall St. darling and it was no different during the tech boom years. Everyone felt they DESERVED everything good coming to them (I was fortunate to miss most of that.)

I went to school with a lot of them and I think we've all met the type that Hilzroy's article describes--the ultra ambitious status seeker who and no humanity or humility. The no real talent dumb ones want to be famous. The physical types are jocks. The smart ones go to "Name" schools, get "Name" jobs and CRAVE status/wealth/power.

What we are finding is that it's not ENOUGH to be mentally or physically gifted. I think we've lost sight of the fact that it's important to develop some character along the way as well as nurture talent.

Wow, out of touch doesn't even start to describe this $hit.

These guys TRASHED the WHOLE WORLD'S ECONOMY.

Four hundred years ago they would have been drawn and quartered and their heads would have been on pikes on London bridge.

Three hundred years ago they would have been guillotined.

Two hundred years ago they would have been left to rot in a poor house.

One hundred years ago they would have cleaned brush in a chain gang for the rest of their lives if they were lucky and dangling from trees if they were not.

As it is, they make Osama Bin Laden blush with envy. Wall St has succeeded where he failed.

They better hope Obama saves their silly asses because nobody else will, and even he compared them to terrorists willing to take down the world's financial system if they don't get what they want.

Not exactly the image you want to project to the world right before it possibly goes to hell in a hand basket.

First (as others have pointed out), Julia Roberts & A-Rod are entertainers, and entertainment is a helluva lot closer to a real free-market industry than anything this narcissistic nitwits are doing. Also, successful actors are usually perfectly aware that they are more lucky than brilliant, and even if they are brilliant, they've almost certainly worked with equally brilliant people whose careers went nowhere.

Second, has anyone pointed out that athletes and actors usually have a very short time at the top of their earning game?- these guys should just be grateful for what they've managed to accumulate in short, unproductive careers, and they would be damned lucky to be subjects of a 'where are they now?' article in a decade or two.

.
Actually, they're right: You can't live in NYC on $75k any more. Not like a human being, anyway. That's why that great working-class city is dying, along with everything that made it great. Because if janitors and secretaries and teachers and firefighters can't afford to live there, neither can artists and writers and dancers and actors and filmmakers and musicians. So all you've got left is a bunch of international parasites and their live-in illegal alien help, and two million commuters from the burbs. There goes your cultural center of the universe. And you can thank the greedy bastard landlords and bankers and brokers and traders and CEOs.
.

The most unfortunate reason these people have such an extreme sense of entitlement, is that prosecutors don't trust juries to understand complex issues. That's why Spitzer was such a threat. And it's why he can't do an interview that isn't laserbeam focused on his sex life.

Oh, this one is so easy!

I'll re-recycle this comment:

Eat the Rich. . .

Why are people here defending Julia Roberts earning $25M per film?

they are not the "makers"- they are the "takers". They don't produce a damn thing besides flawed formulas and models. I wouldn't trust them to work on my car if they were mechanics.
-Roberts is irrelevant. Her price tag went up after she won an Oscar- that merits a pay raise. Taking tax dollars and then crying poohouse is hypocrisy. Boo- farkin hoo your kid can't go to Exeter anymore. No more Broadway stage sized auditoriums for your kid to be a turkey on. Cry me a river to Jordan. You make the bed you lie in it, not lie about it.

I wonder how many Hollywod projects are being pitched where the villain is a Wall Street type or a Corporate banker...and how many teabagger realize they are being duped by Corporate America.

If, you do believe a pro athlete or an actor makes too much, stop attending games, buying tickets for movies or DVDs. Wall Street blood suckers are a completely different matter.

Best quote ever about salaries of athletes came from Moses Malone - When asked by a scribe, if he believed he was making too much money, Moses said, "Boss says its cool; its cool".

Did any of these economic and financial geniuses ever figure out that the major reason everything in New York is so expensive is that there are a ton of overpaid Wall Street minions throwing money at every status symbol in sight? Now that all that money is probably gone for good, maybe prices will drift downward so that even the unwashed masses might have a chance at a few luxuries.

Btw, the worst example of greedy bastard pissing and moaning I've seen was in a op-ed piece posted on the NYT's site a while back from a Hahvard B school prof, who, in defense of his greedy bastard students' need to be paid hundreds of millions of dollars lest the world econ crash even further, compared the populist sentiment against excess salaries to... you guess it... Nazism.

Even worse, after being thoroughly castigated for employing the /Hitlerium ad absurdum/ fallacy, he deemed it necessary to return and defend his assertion that populists are Nazis.

All on the electronic pages of the Old Grey Lady.

"Why are people here defending Julia Roberts earning $25M per film?"

a) Unlike Wall Street people, Julia Roberts is producing something of tangible value: A filmed performance, available on DVD.

b) Unlike Wall Street people, Julia Roberts is good at her job. You can't just pull any old schlub off the street and get him or her to deliver an award-winning performance that'll do $100M at the box office, but pretty much any old schlub can take a large corporation and run it into bankruptcy and ignominy.

Therefore, Julia Roberts deserves an eight-figure check more than John Thain does.

Dear Entitled Wall Street Assholes:

Remember, Obama warned your bosses that he's all that stands between you and the pitchforks.

Dear President Obama:
Please stand aside.

I will be happy to send him a thank you note and give him an update on my life.

People at firms that would not have survived without government assistance...

Why are we calling this a bailout? It looks like welfare to me. Call it what it is and see how they like it!

Is nobody going to defend poor Norma Desmond? 20 years out of the biz, but she was a smart investor and still rich! "I've got a million dollars. I've got oil wells in Bakersfield, pumping, pumping..."

Oh, the poor pitiful rich. How they suffer. It would be a merciful kindness to put them all out of their misery.

I'm still big. It's the bonuses that have gotten small.

The Wall-Streeters, for the most part, do no actual productive work (increasing net utility instead of shuffling it around.) That makes them even less entitled to anything.

This is good for the people of New York City.

Extreme -- really extreme -- divisions of wealth make areas more difficult to live in.

The proper comparison isn't Julia Roberts, it's Kris Kristofferson before and after Heaven's Gate.