Comments on: Guaranteed bonus quote of the day

By: jck

jck — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:46:34 +0000

OJ: “the reason why banks have to pay guarantees is that they have lied to so many recruits over the years you would be mad to move without one.”
this is particularly true for HSBC. the comment by the CEO is self-serving, his bank has a reputation and not a good one, although juvenile bloggers don’t know this, hence the uninformed post.

By: oj

oj — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:56:44 +0000

the reason why banks have to pay guarantees is that they have lied to so many recruits over the years you would be mad to move without one.

By: Curmudgeon

Curmudgeon — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:21:55 +0000

In the rest of America, if you do well but the company as a whole does poorly, you don’t get a bonus because there is no money. That is the fundamental difference of Wall Street – poor company performance doesn’t matter to them.

By: fric

fric — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:54:35 +0000

…and what about last year good or very good performances not paied at all. Maybe signing a minimum guaranteed bonus is a sign of commitment by the firm…i.e. managers.. to run the business instead of running with the monies.

By: RN

RN — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:20:27 +0000

Why does Carney even have a job anymore?

By: David Wetherell

David Wetherell — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:53:09 +0000

I believe Sarkozy has the right plan here. He now has the support of Merkel. It’s well past time for the US to step up. Too much over the top is too much. If good brains go elsewhere, so what. The economy will probably benefit for the distribution of intelligence.

David S. Wetherell
Managing Partner of GBP Capital

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:20:46 +0000

Has anybody else noticed that all of Carney’s profile pictures occur at bars, parties, mixers, and other such “events”?

I think he needs to dry out for a bit and get back to reality.

Thank you, Felix, for setting the bar for reasoned and well though journalism.

By: Dirk

Dirk — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:54:27 +0000

A guaranteed bonus is a contradiction in terms, and one thing the recent financial crisis has done has made the rest of us aware of how the financial industry uses the word “bonus” in a way different from everyone else.

I knew they paid bonuses, big bonuses, but I always figured they were performance-based. In a period of 10 years, maybe they would pay bonuses 3 of those years. Average and below-average years would not result in bonuses. But that’s not how they think on Wall St. They pay bonuses EVERY SINGLE YEAR. These aren’t really bonuses. The employers and the employees expect them like clockwork, so they are really part of normal compensation.

If the rest of America understood this, maybe there wouldn’t have been so much outrage. And maybe more people would have flocked to work in the financial industry (if they had known the high pay levels) and driven salaries down.