http://rawstory.com/2009/10/goldman-sachs-2009-bonuses-to-double-2008s-23-billion-could-buy-115-million-iphones-or-send-460000-to-harvard/
On Thursday, Goldman Sachs will announce the firm's bonus payments for 2009. Analysts expect the bonus pool to mushroom to $23 billion -- double the bonus pool paid to employees in 2008. Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs said that it had put aside $11.4 billion for bonuses during the first half of the year.
...
How much is $23,000,000,000?
For one thing, it's enough to send 460,000 full paying students to Harvard University for one year, or 115,000 for four years.
Story continues below...
It's enough to pay the health insurance premium for the average American family ($13,375) 1.7 million times.
It's enough to upgrade 191 million computers to Windows 7 operating system (priced at $119.99), or to buy 115 million iPhones at $199.99 (provided the recipient was willing to sign a two-year contract).
Or, apparently, it's enough to reward the employees of Goldman Sachs for a bonanza trading year, at a firm where average employee compensation was recently $622,000 -- and likely to be greater this year.
The $23 billion figure could leave some American taxpayers woozy -- the US government bailed out Goldman Sachs with a multi-billion payment last year, which the firm has since repaid.
But while Goldman is likely to pay its biggest bonuses ever to employees, the firm pays very little in taxes worldwide. In 2008, the company was said to have paid just $14 million in taxes worldwide, and paid $6 billion in 2007.
The firm's corporate tax rate? About 1 percent. According a prominent tax lawyer, "They have taken steps to ensure that a lot of their income is earned in lower-tax jurisdictions."
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Yes, that seems fair doesn't it?
I can't wait to hear the news that congress has botched health care reform later today...
Of course, I'd love to be proven wrong. I'd love to hear of some great success for social justice for the other 99% of the country. You know, the ones that do actually pay taxes worth a damn.
Showing posts with label Goldman Sachs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Goldman Sachs. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Super-Gold-Plated Cadillac Health Care Plans
A Clear Choice on Federal Subsidies
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2887
The debate over the merits of taxing high-cost, excessively generous insurance plans has highlighted Goldman Sachs’s plan as an example. Goldman’s 400 managing directors reportedly receive an average of $40,543 in employer-provided health insurance annually. What has received less attention is how much of the cost the federal government pays. This compensation is provided tax-free. The same result would occur if the compensation were included as income and the government sent each Goldman managing director a check for $14,777 each year.
For comparison, consider an illustrative family of three in which the father earns $30,000 as an independent contractor for a small plumbing company and the mother earns $25,000 from a small retailer. Neither small business provides health benefits. The couple has a daughter in second grade at the local public school and pays $100 a week for child care after school and during the summer. The family lives in a modest home and pays $1,000 a month in rent and $250 in utilities. It owes $2,312 in federal income taxes, $6,502 in Social Security and Medicare taxes, and $1,350 in state income taxes. It has two cars with payments of $300 a month each, and pays $2,000 a year in car insurance and $1,000 a year for gasoline. It spends $150 a week on groceries. The couple has avoided accruing any credit card debt, but they have no saving for retirement and no life insurance.
After paying these basic expenses, this typical family would have a little less than $500 a month to cover any costs for clothes or shoes, car repairs or maintenance, household expenses, restaurant meals, and any hobbies or activities — and all of the family’s health expenses.
Right now, the federal government pays $14,777 to provide health insurance for each of Goldman Sachs’s managing directors and pays nothing to provide health insurance for this middle-income family. The Administration and Congress face a clear choice: can we modestly reduce the extremely generous government subsidies provided to the Goldman bankers and others similarly situated to help pay for a subsidy worth a fraction of that amount to families of modest means?
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I know something like a comment is expected here, but do I really have to say anything at all? What conclusions do you draw about our supposed democratic republic? I mean, technically it still is a democratic republic, right? Maybe...?
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2887
The debate over the merits of taxing high-cost, excessively generous insurance plans has highlighted Goldman Sachs’s plan as an example. Goldman’s 400 managing directors reportedly receive an average of $40,543 in employer-provided health insurance annually. What has received less attention is how much of the cost the federal government pays. This compensation is provided tax-free. The same result would occur if the compensation were included as income and the government sent each Goldman managing director a check for $14,777 each year.
For comparison, consider an illustrative family of three in which the father earns $30,000 as an independent contractor for a small plumbing company and the mother earns $25,000 from a small retailer. Neither small business provides health benefits. The couple has a daughter in second grade at the local public school and pays $100 a week for child care after school and during the summer. The family lives in a modest home and pays $1,000 a month in rent and $250 in utilities. It owes $2,312 in federal income taxes, $6,502 in Social Security and Medicare taxes, and $1,350 in state income taxes. It has two cars with payments of $300 a month each, and pays $2,000 a year in car insurance and $1,000 a year for gasoline. It spends $150 a week on groceries. The couple has avoided accruing any credit card debt, but they have no saving for retirement and no life insurance.
After paying these basic expenses, this typical family would have a little less than $500 a month to cover any costs for clothes or shoes, car repairs or maintenance, household expenses, restaurant meals, and any hobbies or activities — and all of the family’s health expenses.
Right now, the federal government pays $14,777 to provide health insurance for each of Goldman Sachs’s managing directors and pays nothing to provide health insurance for this middle-income family. The Administration and Congress face a clear choice: can we modestly reduce the extremely generous government subsidies provided to the Goldman bankers and others similarly situated to help pay for a subsidy worth a fraction of that amount to families of modest means?
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I know something like a comment is expected here, but do I really have to say anything at all? What conclusions do you draw about our supposed democratic republic? I mean, technically it still is a democratic republic, right? Maybe...?
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Max Keiser: "Goldman Sachs Are Scum"
Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/max-keiser-goldman-sachs-are-scum
Submitted by Tyler Durden on Thu, 07/16/2009 - 14:41
"They are literally stealing a hundred million dollars a day. Goldman Sachs is stealing every day on the floor of the exchange. They should be in the Hague, they should be taken on financial terrorism charges. They should all be thrown in jail"
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ZeroHedge and Taibblog are must reading on this Goldman material.
Submitted by Tyler Durden on Thu, 07/16/2009 - 14:41
"They are literally stealing a hundred million dollars a day. Goldman Sachs is stealing every day on the floor of the exchange. They should be in the Hague, they should be taken on financial terrorism charges. They should all be thrown in jail"
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ZeroHedge and Taibblog are must reading on this Goldman material.
Monday, July 6, 2009
The Welfare Queen of Wall Street:
Matt Taibbi on the Goldman Sachs Bubble Machine
Crappy PDF of Rolling Stone article here:
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/goldman-sachs-engineering-every-major.html
From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression...
Nearly correct text OCRed here (forum "corrects" for naughty words):
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3159732&pagenumber=1
Taibbi on Goldman Sachs' Semi-Sorta Reply/Non-Reply:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/06/30/on-giving-goldman-a-chance/
Taibbi on Goldman Sachs front-running:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/07/02/is-goldman-legally-frontrunning-its-clients/
"You acknowledge that we may monitor your use of the Services for our own purposes (and not for your benefit)."
And finally, Taibbi on the Obama/Goldman Sacks Snuggling:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/04/09/summers-raked-in-27-million-in-speaking-fees-from-wall-street-44-washingtonpostcom/
Most importantly, I’m sensing in these economic appointments a kind of drearily cynical parsing of the approval-rating situation here — Obama knows he’s still flying high with the “Yes We Can!” t-shirt crowd, and knows that most people simply are not going to give a shit if he packs his Treasury Department with Goldman alums and lobbyists, despite the fact that he explicitly promised to do otherwise.
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Bottom line: The U.S. federal government and Goldman Sachs have a long and jaded history of revolving door appointments and obvious favoritism for GS and against other players. When you are Goldman Sachs or some other big player, what might otherwise be financial malfeasance is actually perfectly legal. When you make huge, country fucking mistakes the taxpayers will bail you out. Whatever usury you are collecting isn't probably enough. The name of the game is power through debt and it doesn't really matter how much real wealth you have (although its a lot!) as long as you can squeeze everybody else by the balls.
Power.
to.
Squeeze.
So yeah, Obama is just another corrupt asshole so far. His appointments are a fucking joke for the people of this country. Salvation will not be forthcoming. We all wasted our votes on this asshat.
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/goldman-sachs-engineering-every-major.html
From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression...
Nearly correct text OCRed here (forum "corrects" for naughty words):
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3159732&pagenumber=1
Taibbi on Goldman Sachs' Semi-Sorta Reply/Non-Reply:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/06/30/on-giving-goldman-a-chance/
Taibbi on Goldman Sachs front-running:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/07/02/is-goldman-legally-frontrunning-its-clients/
"You acknowledge that we may monitor your use of the Services for our own purposes (and not for your benefit)."
And finally, Taibbi on the Obama/Goldman Sacks Snuggling:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/04/09/summers-raked-in-27-million-in-speaking-fees-from-wall-street-44-washingtonpostcom/
Most importantly, I’m sensing in these economic appointments a kind of drearily cynical parsing of the approval-rating situation here — Obama knows he’s still flying high with the “Yes We Can!” t-shirt crowd, and knows that most people simply are not going to give a shit if he packs his Treasury Department with Goldman alums and lobbyists, despite the fact that he explicitly promised to do otherwise.
------
Bottom line: The U.S. federal government and Goldman Sachs have a long and jaded history of revolving door appointments and obvious favoritism for GS and against other players. When you are Goldman Sachs or some other big player, what might otherwise be financial malfeasance is actually perfectly legal. When you make huge, country fucking mistakes the taxpayers will bail you out. Whatever usury you are collecting isn't probably enough. The name of the game is power through debt and it doesn't really matter how much real wealth you have (although its a lot!) as long as you can squeeze everybody else by the balls.
Power.
to.
Squeeze.
So yeah, Obama is just another corrupt asshole so far. His appointments are a fucking joke for the people of this country. Salvation will not be forthcoming. We all wasted our votes on this asshat.
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