Davos Rumor: Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein To Take $100 Million Bonus For 2009
I can't believe Blankfein is actually this disconnected and honestly, stupid. After the deal negotiated with the UK government last week limiting Goldman's London execs to a maximum bonus of $1.8 million, I assumed Lloyd would award himself somewhere around $10-15 million in order to keep the populists, not to mention Obama, at bay.
If this proves to be true, expect another round of Goldman bashing and noise from Capitol Hill. This type of irresponsible compensation will automatically generate more support for the bankers' bonus tax introduced last week.
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Goldman Sachs, the world’s richest investment bank, could be about to pay its chief executive a bumper bonus of up to $100 million in defiance of moves by President Obama to take action against such payouts.
Bankers in Davos for the World Economic Forum (WEF) told The Times yesterday they understood that Lloyd Blankfein and other top Goldman bankers outside Britain were set to receive some of the bank’s biggest-ever payouts. “This is Lloyd thumbing his nose at Obama,” said a banker at one of Goldman’s rivals.
Goldman Sachs is becoming the focus of an increasingly acrimonious political and financial showdown over the payment of multimillion-pound bonuses.Last week the US President described bonuses paid out by some banks as “the height of irresponsibility” and “shameful”.
“The American people understand that we have a big hole to dig ourselves out of, but they do not like the idea that people are digging a bigger hole, even as they are being asked to fill it up,” he said last week.
Mr Blankfein took home his biggest bonus so far in 2007, when he was paid $67.9 million. His bank’s profits last year were $1.8 billion higher than in 2007. This leaves the bank with a justification to pay him even more although payouts will be made in shares rather than cash to make them more politically palatable.
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Continue reading at the UK Times >>
Feb 1, 2010 at 2:58 AM
Reader Comments (10)
How many guards to you think they have at 85 Broad? And how many would it take to storm said HQ? Unarmed, of course. Give us our cut, LB. You don't exist without us. Dear Lord, please let me bump into LB --- whether on the street or elsewhere. How much would he owe me?
That's the freaky thing -- these punks owe their paychecks to US. We OWN them. And we should let them know it. Daily Bail road trip to NYC? I'm a capitalist 100%, but I wouldn't think twice of just walking around the HQ of these banks like I owned the place. As far as I'm concerned, we DO own the place.
I'd say 300 determined, pissed off, and fairly strong people could easily take on Goldman's security detail. Ditto the other TARP welfare banks.
http://www.metatube.com/en/videos/28284/Israel-Laughs-At-Haitian-Disaster-Video/
as they say ( Just aint what it used to be)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl2fONPgIJE
or maybe this....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5N35kQAPv0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usd4z9rxbys
When the boys start coming out of the woodwork things can get interesting, heh, heh.
As he said "We have the strong thing taken care of."