Wall Street Pay Rises 20%

The crooks on Wall Street are raking in the dough even as they are pushing for the dismantling of Social Security, the firing of teachers, cops and other government employees, and the destruction of government worker pension plans:

WALL Street incomes are surging back.

The government reported this week that the real wage and salary income of finance industry employees based in Manhattan rose nearly 20 percent in the first quarter of this year. That surge helped make Manhattan the fastest-growing county in the United States in terms of terms of year-over-year gains in income.

Most Wall Street firms pay bonuses in the first quarter of each year, and the figures indicate that bonuses were much higher this year than in the same quarter of 2009. Then, of course, the financial crisis was at its most severe, with stock prices at 12-year lows and major banks being bailed out. It was not a good time to be paying bonuses.

The figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are based on unemployment compensation insurance premiums paid, and thus reflect virtually all employees rather than relying on surveys of workers or employers. Unfortunately, to get such detail requires substantial delays, which is why first-quarter figures are only now coming out.

As can be seen in the accompanying graphic, the average financial industry employee earned just over $100,000 in the first three months of the year, a figure that was up sharply from the same period of 2009 but still below the payouts in the previous three years.

The fact that those averages include bank tellers and trading desk clerks, as well as senior investment bankers, shows just how large many of the bonuses were.

After Cuomo the Crook gets elected, his criminal friends on Wall Street will be making even more money, because he intends to take on the public workers unions and slash pensions, benefits, and salaries.

Because the state cannot afford to pay these anymore.

But the crooks on Wall Street, most of whom work for corporations that pay few taxes and receive subsidies from the state and the city for locating where they do - those guys deserve more.

Until we take to the street and TAKE back the money from these people, this is going to get worse and worse.

Since Americans have long been complicit in their own oppression, I doubt that will ever happen.

But I am happy to be wrong.