Yeah, no. the investments that people are sitting on can be realized into capital gains but until then they are just assets sitting around appreciating or depreciating in value. You only consider capital gains as income when the gains are realized. At least, for individuals.
Exactly. You can't count appreciation in income, unless you want to start claiming that everyone's yearly income should also account for the increase in the value of their home and other assets.
Edit: Here is a very interesting article on defining the "rich"
There should be some happy middle ground between "oh, my house went up in value by $10,000 this year, that's $10,000 in income," versus "oh, the value of my stocks went up by $15 million this year, but that's not income..."
Kind of reiterating what SKFM said, but anyways, the increase in value will eventually get taxed when the stocks are sold. If they're never sold (ever), there's no reason to tax the appreciation as there's no benefit to just having a piece of paper. You can't buy groceries or a car with those stocks.
Except you can. You can use unsold stock as collateral to borrow against, effectively using it as untaxed income. Steve Jobs is famous for this:
oh wait nope, this seems like exactly what any reasonable person would do.
I don't understand your issue here.
Any reasonable person would continue to collect and use foodstamps after winning the lottery? If the government mistakenly sends me food stamps or a welfare check in the mail, should I just keep and use them (and not tell the government to stop sending them)?
You have to go through a fucking phenomenal amount of paperwork and shit to keep food stamps
Here in Wisconsin they've contracted food stamps and medicaid out to a private agency that just flat out denies claims the first few times in an effort to get rid of people, they also blatantly lie and are impossible to directly talk to, unless you've got 3 hours to wait in hold during working hours (which coincidentally line up almost perfectly with the working hours of most people!)
They like to accuse you of fraud too! Last time I had to talk to someone in an "interview" she was giving me the third degree about why I haven't started attending university yet (I'm picking up transferable credits at the 2/3 lower cost community college I got my AAS at) and trying to paint me as someone living off the government teat since I work at the school. She also accused me of forging the Earnings Verification document I submitted because "it didn't look right" and told me to get a new one and resubmit it (this involves driving over an hour to where payroll is at, as they wont do it otherwise).
Yeah I'd totally put up with that if I won the lottery. I don't even want to put up with it now and the $120 I get this month I actually need
The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”
Facing a slump in revenue from investment banking and trading, Wall Street firms have trimmed 2011 discretionary pay. At Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Barclays Capital, the cuts were at least 25 percent. Morgan Stanley (MS) capped cash bonuses at $125,000, and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) increased the percentage of deferred pay.
Wall Street’s cash bonus pool fell by 14 percent last year to $19.7 billion, the lowest since 2008, according to projections by New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
“It’s a disaster,” said Ilana Weinstein, chief executive officer of New York-based search firm IDW Group LLC. “The entire construct of compensation has changed.”
Most people can only dream of Wall Street’s shrinking paychecks. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, lower than the previous year and less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011. The percentage of Americans living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent, the highest in almost two decades.
Richard Scheiner, 58, a real-estate investor and hedge-fund manager, said most people on Wall Street don’t save.
“When their means are cut, they’re stuck,” said Scheiner, whose New York-based hedge fund, Lane Gate Partners LLC, was down about 15 percent last year. “Not so much an issue for me and my wife because we’ve always saved.”
Scheiner said he spends about $500 a month to park one of his two Audis in a garage and at least $7,500 a year each for memberships at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester and a gun club in upstate New York. A labradoodle named Zelda and a rescued bichon frise, Duke, cost $17,000 a year, including food, health care, boarding and a daily dog-walker who charges $17 each per outing, he said.
There are several taxes which were designed to influence behavior. There's a reason cigarettes cost so much. And booze in Scotland, thank-you-very-much-SNfuckingP.
These types of taxes are generally one offs that are instituted because (1) legislatures are scared of transparency, and people have more trouble determing the effect of a tax provision than a general law or (2) because budgetary rules can make passing social reforms through the tax system easier as a mechanical matter. If you were designing a tax on cigarettes that was designed to raise revenue (not a social reform masquerading as a tax) then you would only tax to the point where you would not expect a decrease in consumption.
Edit: To be clear, if this is the line of argument you want to pursue in endorsing marking assets to market, then you are saying that as a policy matter, we don't want to raise extra money off of stock gains, we just want people to have to sell their stocks once they go up. What would be the policy basis for designing our tax system to encourage more frequent sales of stock?
Because right now, we have people just sitting on tremendous piles of cash reserves, that they could be using to actually do things, but aren't.
I'm betting a .5% tax on wealth would change that.
Or it could force people to sell their houses or family businesses. I just don't see a justification for making the profound step of moving to a system in which we tax unrealized gains. It is so distortionary of behavior, and does not even guarantee your intended outcome, since any capital investment people who are currently invested in equities made would also be subject to the tax. Is your intention to force people to buy new capital assets and then sell them every year?
You could have a "standard deduction" there, a certain amount of wealth excluded from the tax. Hell, make it a standard deduction of two million dollars. That would protect most small businesses, even.
See, this wouldn't be a tax, either; it would be a fine. So, it would even follow your rules of good tax policy.
To be clear, you want to fine people for having more than $2 million? To what end? Making people stop having more than $2 million? What is the policy rational here?
Wealth accumulated within the financial sector has far less stimulus power on the economy than money spent directly on goods and services. Eventually some of that money does get spent on things that actually produce real wealth, but not as much.
This is one of the reasons behind Japan's lost decade, this is also the reason why unemployment has a far more positive stimulus effect than tax cuts. This is also why a little bit of wealth redistribution is good for the economy, despite libertarians' arguments to the contrary.
That's not to say that saving large amounts of money is unilaterally undesirable. That would be insane.
We can also achieve a similar effect by monetary policy that is a little bit more inflationary than what we do now. The finance sector hates inflation - it makes their interest gains worth less, but it makes them invest more aggressively in growing businesses. That can be a good thing.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”
Facing a slump in revenue from investment banking and trading, Wall Street firms have trimmed 2011 discretionary pay. At Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Barclays Capital, the cuts were at least 25 percent. Morgan Stanley (MS) capped cash bonuses at $125,000, and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) increased the percentage of deferred pay.
Wall Street’s cash bonus pool fell by 14 percent last year to $19.7 billion, the lowest since 2008, according to projections by New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
“It’s a disaster,” said Ilana Weinstein, chief executive officer of New York-based search firm IDW Group LLC. “The entire construct of compensation has changed.”
Most people can only dream of Wall Street’s shrinking paychecks. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, lower than the previous year and less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011. The percentage of Americans living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent, the highest in almost two decades.
Richard Scheiner, 58, a real-estate investor and hedge-fund manager, said most people on Wall Street don’t save.
“When their means are cut, they’re stuck,” said Scheiner, whose New York-based hedge fund, Lane Gate Partners LLC, was down about 15 percent last year. “Not so much an issue for me and my wife because we’ve always saved.”
Scheiner said he spends about $500 a month to park one of his two Audis in a garage and at least $7,500 a year each for memberships at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester and a gun club in upstate New York. A labradoodle named Zelda and a rescued bichon frise, Duke, cost $17,000 a year, including food, health care, boarding and a daily dog-walker who charges $17 each per outing, he said.
Can you feel their pain?
I have so much sympathy for someone who spent (nearly) my annual income last year on their dog
That said, I don't think we give enough respect in general to the use of taxes as soft influences - reducing certain behaviors that are fine in small amounts but bad in large amounts. For instance, instead of a smoking ban in bars, I'd be okay with a smoking tax on bars. Just enough to ensure that there's a mix of smoking and nonsmoking bars in an area. We already do things like this through permits.
There was a study done a long-ass time ago about smoking bans in bars, and what they found was that if there are smoking and non-smoking bars, no one will go to the non-smoking bars. However, if all bars are non-smoking, more people go out to bars overall.
It's a weird thing, probably affected primarily by the fact that people who go to bars go with their friends, mostly, and there's usually at least one person who smokes in a group of friends.
Right. Smoking behavior is really inflexible (hey, it's addictive) so that was probably a bad example.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”
Facing a slump in revenue from investment banking and trading, Wall Street firms have trimmed 2011 discretionary pay. At Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Barclays Capital, the cuts were at least 25 percent. Morgan Stanley (MS) capped cash bonuses at $125,000, and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) increased the percentage of deferred pay.
Wall Street’s cash bonus pool fell by 14 percent last year to $19.7 billion, the lowest since 2008, according to projections by New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
“It’s a disaster,” said Ilana Weinstein, chief executive officer of New York-based search firm IDW Group LLC. “The entire construct of compensation has changed.”
Most people can only dream of Wall Street’s shrinking paychecks. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, lower than the previous year and less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011. The percentage of Americans living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent, the highest in almost two decades.
Richard Scheiner, 58, a real-estate investor and hedge-fund manager, said most people on Wall Street don’t save.
“When their means are cut, they’re stuck,” said Scheiner, whose New York-based hedge fund, Lane Gate Partners LLC, was down about 15 percent last year. “Not so much an issue for me and my wife because we’ve always saved.”
Scheiner said he spends about $500 a month to park one of his two Audis in a garage and at least $7,500 a year each for memberships at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester and a gun club in upstate New York. A labradoodle named Zelda and a rescued bichon frise, Duke, cost $17,000 a year, including food, health care, boarding and a daily dog-walker who charges $17 each per outing, he said.
Can you feel their pain?
I can feel the pain behind my eye where the blood clot is growing from reading these people think these are real fucking problems.
Boo hoo, your kids have to leave private school. Fuck off. I lost free lunches in high school thanks to budget cuts and I still couldn't afford to pay for them.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”
Facing a slump in revenue from investment banking and trading, Wall Street firms have trimmed 2011 discretionary pay. At Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Barclays Capital, the cuts were at least 25 percent. Morgan Stanley (MS) capped cash bonuses at $125,000, and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) increased the percentage of deferred pay.
Wall Street’s cash bonus pool fell by 14 percent last year to $19.7 billion, the lowest since 2008, according to projections by New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
“It’s a disaster,” said Ilana Weinstein, chief executive officer of New York-based search firm IDW Group LLC. “The entire construct of compensation has changed.”
Most people can only dream of Wall Street’s shrinking paychecks. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, lower than the previous year and less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011. The percentage of Americans living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent, the highest in almost two decades.
Richard Scheiner, 58, a real-estate investor and hedge-fund manager, said most people on Wall Street don’t save.
“When their means are cut, they’re stuck,” said Scheiner, whose New York-based hedge fund, Lane Gate Partners LLC, was down about 15 percent last year. “Not so much an issue for me and my wife because we’ve always saved.”
Scheiner said he spends about $500 a month to park one of his two Audis in a garage and at least $7,500 a year each for memberships at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester and a gun club in upstate New York. A labradoodle named Zelda and a rescued bichon frise, Duke, cost $17,000 a year, including food, health care, boarding and a daily dog-walker who charges $17 each per outing, he said.
Can you feel their pain?
I can feel the pain behind my eye where the blood clot is growing from reading these people think these are real fucking problems.
Boo hoo, your kids have to leave private school. Fuck off. I lost free lunches in high school thanks to budget cuts and I still couldn't afford to pay for them.
We already discussed this article a few pages ago. One thing people should keep in mind is the the decision to live in the city may be contingent on sending your kids to private school, so having to pull them out is equivalent to having your house rezoned from a good district to a bad district. Is that really so unsympathetic?
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”
Facing a slump in revenue from investment banking and trading, Wall Street firms have trimmed 2011 discretionary pay. At Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Barclays Capital, the cuts were at least 25 percent. Morgan Stanley (MS) capped cash bonuses at $125,000, and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) increased the percentage of deferred pay.
Wall Street’s cash bonus pool fell by 14 percent last year to $19.7 billion, the lowest since 2008, according to projections by New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
“It’s a disaster,” said Ilana Weinstein, chief executive officer of New York-based search firm IDW Group LLC. “The entire construct of compensation has changed.”
Most people can only dream of Wall Street’s shrinking paychecks. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, lower than the previous year and less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011. The percentage of Americans living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent, the highest in almost two decades.
Richard Scheiner, 58, a real-estate investor and hedge-fund manager, said most people on Wall Street don’t save.
“When their means are cut, they’re stuck,” said Scheiner, whose New York-based hedge fund, Lane Gate Partners LLC, was down about 15 percent last year. “Not so much an issue for me and my wife because we’ve always saved.”
Scheiner said he spends about $500 a month to park one of his two Audis in a garage and at least $7,500 a year each for memberships at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester and a gun club in upstate New York. A labradoodle named Zelda and a rescued bichon frise, Duke, cost $17,000 a year, including food, health care, boarding and a daily dog-walker who charges $17 each per outing, he said.
Can you feel their pain?
I can feel the pain behind my eye where the blood clot is growing from reading these people think these are real fucking problems.
Boo hoo, your kids have to leave private school. Fuck off. I lost free lunches in high school thanks to budget cuts and I still couldn't afford to pay for them.
We already discussed this article a few pages ago. One thing people should keep in mind is the the decision to live in the city may be contingent on sending your kids to private school, so having to pull them out is equivalent to having your house rezoned from a good district to a bad district. Is that really so unsympathetic?
Compared to actual problems? Yes. They're not on the same level. I can understand where they're coming from, but its a position of such privileged and so far removed from reality that I cannot sympathize with it.
It's a bit like some guy in Africa looking at the problems of the poor in American and thinking "Jeeze, fucking spoiled brats" though obviously on an even larger scale.
I sympathize with people who want to send their kids to private school. I want to send my kids to private school.
However, I do not sympathize with people who want to defund public schools. I want to send my kids to private school, and I want to pay taxes to make sure public school kids have good resources.
I don't get particularly outraged when rich people say "I want to buy rich person things!" It's only when they start to bitch about taxes or big government or suck Ayn Rand's dick (yes, I'm pretty sure she had one) that I get irritated.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
That said, I don't think we give enough respect in general to the use of taxes as soft influences - reducing certain behaviors that are fine in small amounts but bad in large amounts. For instance, instead of a smoking ban in bars, I'd be okay with a smoking tax on bars. Just enough to ensure that there's a mix of smoking and nonsmoking bars in an area. We already do things like this through permits.
There was a study done a long-ass time ago about smoking bans in bars, and what they found was that if there are smoking and non-smoking bars, no one will go to the non-smoking bars. However, if all bars are non-smoking, more people go out to bars overall.
It's a weird thing, probably affected primarily by the fact that people who go to bars go with their friends, mostly, and there's usually at least one person who smokes in a group of friends.
Right. Smoking behavior is really inflexible (hey, it's addictive) so that was probably a bad example.
It is also why ironically enough you can have a true tax in cigarette smoking, aince demand for cigarettes is generally inelastic. That said, the high levels cigarette taxes in the US seem to be designed to actually reduce demand, which should be workable since they are not truly inelastic. In a sense, the perfect tax would be one based on oxygen consumption, since demand is truly inelastic. Of course, the logistics would be impossible to overcome.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”
Facing a slump in revenue from investment banking and trading, Wall Street firms have trimmed 2011 discretionary pay. At Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Barclays Capital, the cuts were at least 25 percent. Morgan Stanley (MS) capped cash bonuses at $125,000, and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) increased the percentage of deferred pay.
Wall Street’s cash bonus pool fell by 14 percent last year to $19.7 billion, the lowest since 2008, according to projections by New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
“It’s a disaster,” said Ilana Weinstein, chief executive officer of New York-based search firm IDW Group LLC. “The entire construct of compensation has changed.”
Most people can only dream of Wall Street’s shrinking paychecks. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, lower than the previous year and less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011. The percentage of Americans living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent, the highest in almost two decades.
Richard Scheiner, 58, a real-estate investor and hedge-fund manager, said most people on Wall Street don’t save.
“When their means are cut, they’re stuck,” said Scheiner, whose New York-based hedge fund, Lane Gate Partners LLC, was down about 15 percent last year. “Not so much an issue for me and my wife because we’ve always saved.”
Scheiner said he spends about $500 a month to park one of his two Audis in a garage and at least $7,500 a year each for memberships at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester and a gun club in upstate New York. A labradoodle named Zelda and a rescued bichon frise, Duke, cost $17,000 a year, including food, health care, boarding and a daily dog-walker who charges $17 each per outing, he said.
Can you feel their pain?
I can feel the pain behind my eye where the blood clot is growing from reading these people think these are real fucking problems.
Boo hoo, your kids have to leave private school. Fuck off. I lost free lunches in high school thanks to budget cuts and I still couldn't afford to pay for them.
We already discussed this article a few pages ago. One thing people should keep in mind is the the decision to live in the city may be contingent on sending your kids to private school, so having to pull them out is equivalent to having your house rezoned from a good district to a bad district. Is that really so unsympathetic?
Compared to actual problems? Yes. They're not on the same level. I can understand where they're coming from, but its a position of such privileged and so far removed from reality that I cannot sympathize with it.
It's a bit like some guy in Africa looking at the problems of the poor in American and thinking "Jeeze, fucking spoiled brats" though obviously on an even larger scale.
Would you have the same reaction if they lived in a good district, and then were rezoned to a bad one?
It's a bit like some guy in Africa looking at the problems of the poor in American and thinking "Jeeze, fucking spoiled brats" though obviously on an even larger scale.
Yeah, that's the other reason why I have trouble with outrage at articles like that. There are people who don't have homes, food, or basic medical care, who are suffering from diseases that I could treat for multiple years with the money I just spent on an Xbox game.
I still reserve the right to bitch about #firstworldproblems sometimes, and I don't really want to feel like a Bad Person if somebody catches me complaining that my cell phone bill is too high.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
0
Options
AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”
Facing a slump in revenue from investment banking and trading, Wall Street firms have trimmed 2011 discretionary pay. At Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Barclays Capital, the cuts were at least 25 percent. Morgan Stanley (MS) capped cash bonuses at $125,000, and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) increased the percentage of deferred pay.
Wall Street’s cash bonus pool fell by 14 percent last year to $19.7 billion, the lowest since 2008, according to projections by New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
“It’s a disaster,” said Ilana Weinstein, chief executive officer of New York-based search firm IDW Group LLC. “The entire construct of compensation has changed.”
Most people can only dream of Wall Street’s shrinking paychecks. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, lower than the previous year and less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011. The percentage of Americans living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent, the highest in almost two decades.
Richard Scheiner, 58, a real-estate investor and hedge-fund manager, said most people on Wall Street don’t save.
“When their means are cut, they’re stuck,” said Scheiner, whose New York-based hedge fund, Lane Gate Partners LLC, was down about 15 percent last year. “Not so much an issue for me and my wife because we’ve always saved.”
Scheiner said he spends about $500 a month to park one of his two Audis in a garage and at least $7,500 a year each for memberships at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester and a gun club in upstate New York. A labradoodle named Zelda and a rescued bichon frise, Duke, cost $17,000 a year, including food, health care, boarding and a daily dog-walker who charges $17 each per outing, he said.
Can you feel their pain?
I can feel the pain behind my eye where the blood clot is growing from reading these people think these are real fucking problems.
Boo hoo, your kids have to leave private school. Fuck off. I lost free lunches in high school thanks to budget cuts and I still couldn't afford to pay for them.
We already discussed this article a few pages ago. One thing people should keep in mind is the the decision to live in the city may be contingent on sending your kids to private school, so having to pull them out is equivalent to having your house rezoned from a good district to a bad district. Is that really so unsympathetic?
Compared to actual problems? Yes. They're not on the same level. I can understand where they're coming from, but its a position of such privileged and so far removed from reality that I cannot sympathize with it.
It's a bit like some guy in Africa looking at the problems of the poor in American and thinking "Jeeze, fucking spoiled brats" though obviously on an even larger scale.
Would you have the same reaction if they lived in a good district, and then were rezoned to a bad one?
I don't think you understand that it isn't the same thing no matter how much you're trying to paint it as.
In Florida, and that's the only public school system I can speak with confidence to, you can do school choice to go to your old school if you get rezoned, or decide you want to go to a better school. That's also the public school system. It isn't my job to make sure you can send your kids to a private school. If it's that important, you'll find a way.
Also, if you're counting on a bonus, something which is by definition variable, to fund you way of life, it may be time to rethink your spending habits.
Firstly, it's a NEW article on this shit (there's been so many I know it can be confusing). Turns out, Wall Street still hasn't figured it out.
Of course, the most egregious part of it is their endless bitching about Problems Only Rich People Have, while themselves being responsible not only for those very same problems they are having, but for far far worse problems the rest of the world is suffering from.
When you send millions of Americans into abject poverty and then lobby to have their benefits slashed, you don't get to bitch about not being able to send your kids to private school. Not unless we get to drag out the guillotines right afterwords.
This is the problem with a bonus heavy based compensation system. You'd think a bunch of finance guys might have thought about the potential fall out from that kind of thing.
The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”
Facing a slump in revenue from investment banking and trading, Wall Street firms have trimmed 2011 discretionary pay. At Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Barclays Capital, the cuts were at least 25 percent. Morgan Stanley (MS) capped cash bonuses at $125,000, and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) increased the percentage of deferred pay.
Wall Street’s cash bonus pool fell by 14 percent last year to $19.7 billion, the lowest since 2008, according to projections by New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
“It’s a disaster,” said Ilana Weinstein, chief executive officer of New York-based search firm IDW Group LLC. “The entire construct of compensation has changed.”
Most people can only dream of Wall Street’s shrinking paychecks. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, lower than the previous year and less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011. The percentage of Americans living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent, the highest in almost two decades.
Richard Scheiner, 58, a real-estate investor and hedge-fund manager, said most people on Wall Street don’t save.
“When their means are cut, they’re stuck,” said Scheiner, whose New York-based hedge fund, Lane Gate Partners LLC, was down about 15 percent last year. “Not so much an issue for me and my wife because we’ve always saved.”
Scheiner said he spends about $500 a month to park one of his two Audis in a garage and at least $7,500 a year each for memberships at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester and a gun club in upstate New York. A labradoodle named Zelda and a rescued bichon frise, Duke, cost $17,000 a year, including food, health care, boarding and a daily dog-walker who charges $17 each per outing, he said.
Can you feel their pain?
I can feel the pain behind my eye where the blood clot is growing from reading these people think these are real fucking problems.
Boo hoo, your kids have to leave private school. Fuck off. I lost free lunches in high school thanks to budget cuts and I still couldn't afford to pay for them.
We already discussed this article a few pages ago. One thing people should keep in mind is the the decision to live in the city may be contingent on sending your kids to private school, so having to pull them out is equivalent to having your house rezoned from a good district to a bad district. Is that really so unsympathetic?
Compared to actual problems? Yes. They're not on the same level. I can understand where they're coming from, but its a position of such privileged and so far removed from reality that I cannot sympathize with it.
It's a bit like some guy in Africa looking at the problems of the poor in American and thinking "Jeeze, fucking spoiled brats" though obviously on an even larger scale.
Would you have the same reaction if they lived in a good district, and then were rezoned to a bad one?
I don't think you understand that it isn't the same thing no matter how much you're trying to paint it as.
In Florida, and that's the only public school system I can speak with confidence to, you can do school choice to go to your old school if you get rezoned, or decide you want to go to a better school. That's also the public school system. It isn't my job to make sure you can send your kids to a private school. If it's that important, you'll find a way.
Also, if you're counting on a bonus, something which is by definition variable, to fund you way of life, it may be time to rethink your spending habits.
They're not really bonuses though. In some fields, they form the majority of your compensation, and the level is very predictable. Taking law as an example, bonuses are generally lockstep, and everyone knows what the bonus schedule will be for each year, just like everyone knows the salary scale. Then in 2008, bonuses were cut severely, and they are still much lower than they used to be. I do not think it was unreasonable for someone in 2004 or 2006 to make plans on the assumption that they would continue to receive bonuses on the scale that they had always been paid at.
The bonus system in the financial sector is a can of worms I don't particularly like opening (it's rather dull,) but traders are largely in a position they've created for themselves if they have to pull their kids out of private school.
Spacekungfuman is correct that they do form a very large part of the overall compensation package, but market volatility isn't exactly brand new (see early 2000s and the internet boom and bust.)
I guess they should have taken more accounting classes.
The bonus system in the financial sector is a can of worms I don't particularly like opening (it's rather dull,) but traders are largely in a position they've created for themselves if they have to pull their kids out of private school.
Spacekungfuman is correct that they do form a very large part of the overall compensation package, but market volatility isn't exactly brand new (see early 2000s and the internet boom and bust.)
I guess they should have taken more accounting classes.
But if you beat the market...
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
That's... not a bonus then! That's salary! They should just call it salary if they're acting like it's salary!
By calling it a bonus (1) you can decide not to pay it to someone part way through the year (2) you get to exclude it from base comp so that raises look bigger and (3) you get the good will of giving people big bonuses at the end of the year. In law, our bonuses are not most of our comp, but they are still pretty big. They used to be 20%+ of your base, and now they are more like a litte over an extra month's pay.
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
There is nothing inherently evil about bonuses. It's just a type of compensation. Some bonuses are required by contract, others are based on hitting your performance objectives, and as skm said above, others are just a creative way to keep merit increases low without being insulting.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think the important thing to keep in mind is that the people complaining about having their bonuses cut by and large are not talking about having less extra money they were not counting on. It is more like if they were told partway through the year that they just would not get paychecks for the rest of the year. It is money that they were almost completely certain that they would receive, based on past experience and industry practice.
I think the important thing to keep in mind is that the people complaining about having their bonuses cut by and large are not talking about having less extra money they were not counting on. It is more like if they were told partway through the year that they just would not get paychecks for the rest of the year. It is money that they were almost completely certain that they would receive, based on past experience and industry practice.
Which is understandable, but a bit silly. Bonuses are discretionary. I understand the reasons why somebody might come to rely on them, but you shouldn't. Put that shit in a retirement fund, buy a big TV, go on vacation, donate it to charity, open a CD... but don't incorporate it into your budget, no matter how reliable you think it is.
These aren't blue collar factory workers we're talking about. They're people who work in finance. This is like a doctor who smokes. They should know better.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I think the important thing to keep in mind is that the people complaining about having their bonuses cut by and large are not talking about having less extra money they were not counting on. It is more like if they were told partway through the year that they just would not get paychecks for the rest of the year. It is money that they were almost completely certain that they would receive, based on past experience and industry practice.
Which just makes them silly and naive at best, since they appear to not understand the purpose of bonuses as part of a compensation structure. (hint - it's to make your payroll flexible during downturns)
shryke on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think the important thing to keep in mind is that the people complaining about having their bonuses cut by and large are not talking about having less extra money they were not counting on. It is more like if they were told partway through the year that they just would not get paychecks for the rest of the year. It is money that they were almost completely certain that they would receive, based on past experience and industry practice.
Which is understandable, but a bit silly. Bonuses are discretionary. I understand the reasons why somebody might come to rely on them, but you shouldn't. Put that shit in a retirement fund, buy a big TV, go on vacation, donate it to charity, open a CD... but don't incorporate it into your budget, no matter how reliable you think it is.
These aren't blue collar factory workers we're talking about. They're people who work in finance. This is like a doctor who smokes. They should know better.
But what if your bonus is 70% of your total comp? There isn't a tv big enough to use that up in the world Personally, I never rely on bonuses, but I know people who choose things like their apartment based on knowing they will get their bonus, making the rent a much smaller percentage of their income than if they went off base alone.
Edit: For what its worth, the average bonus for a big law associate last year was reduced (relative to 2007 levels) by an amount that is more than the average salary in America. When bonuses are that large (in a nonbonus driven field, no less) its hard to blame people for planning around them, and for being upset about the loss.
We've had this conversation before. The very word "bonus" implies it is not to be relied upon as income, and if you are doing so, you are doing it wrong.
Also, the question is not "what if your bonus is 70% of your total comp". The question should be "can you get by at a level you're comfortable with only the other 30%", because if the answer is "no", you got fucked in your salary negotiations.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
We've had this conversation before. The very word "bonus" implies it is not to be relied upon as income, and if you are doing so, you are doing it wrong.
Also, the question is not "what if your bonus is 70% of your total comp". The question should be "can you get by at a level you're comfortable with only the other 30%", because if the answer is "no", you got fucked in your salary negotiations.
Salary negotiations are not even a thing in a lot of these high bonus fields though. They have a fixed salary, take it or leave it.
I think part of the problem is just the language we are using. A bonus which may or may not be paid, and is relatively small as a percentage of comp is very different from a bonus which is consistently paid and which makes up a large percentage of your comp, and both are very different from a CEO who receives the majority of their compensation as a performance bonus for tax purposes.
I don't think it's a problem with the language at all. Obviously, my understanding of the word "bonus" is appropriate and correct, in that those individuals in the "consistently paid and makes up a large percentage of your comp" suddenly found out how inconsistent it can be.
Once again, they made the mistake of relying on an uncertainty. I don't care if it's standard practice, this should teach them why it was a bad financial decision and to either re-negotiate their salaries to be more dependable or stable, or begin looking for work in more stable fields.
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
Houn, replacing the word "bonus" with "tip" may help you understand that base pay as you know it isn't the way compensation works across the board.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I don't think it's a problem with the language at all. Obviously, my understanding of the word "bonus" is appropriate and correct, in that those individuals in the "consistently paid and makes up a large percentage of your comp" suddenly found out how inconsistent it can be.
Once again, they made the mistake of relying on an uncertainty. I don't care if it's standard practice, this should teach them why it was a bad financial decision and to either re-negotiate their salaries to be more dependable or stable, or begin looking for work in more stable fields.
I don't disagree, except that I do find the plight of people who are suddenly being paid much less than experience and industry practice had led them to believe they would be paid to be sympathetic. I don't think it makes sense to look at someone who made $140k in salary and $300k in bonus for each of the last few years and say that he was irresponsible for not living solely off the base in those years.
I don't think it's a problem with the language at all. Obviously, my understanding of the word "bonus" is appropriate and correct, in that those individuals in the "consistently paid and makes up a large percentage of your comp" suddenly found out how inconsistent it can be.
Once again, they made the mistake of relying on an uncertainty. I don't care if it's standard practice, this should teach them why it was a bad financial decision and to either re-negotiate their salaries to be more dependable or stable, or begin looking for work in more stable fields.
I don't disagree, except that I do find the plight of people who are suddenly being paid much less than experience and industry practice had led them to believe they would be paid to be sympathetic. I don't think it makes sense to look at someone who made $140k in salary and $300k in bonus for each of the last few years and say that he was irresponsible for not living solely off the base in those years.
And so they are getting the teensiest, weenciest hint of a taste of what their companies have been doing to the rest of us over the past ten years or so.
My suggestion to them is to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Or just find a better job; I hear McDonald's is hiring.
Houn, replacing the word "bonus" with "tip" may help you understand that base pay as you know it isn't the way compensation works across the board.
Not really, because it's not a tip, and employers in service industries that don't pay a living wage so that their employees NEED tips to survive day to day is just as fucked up and unethical as convincing an entire industry that 70% of your compensation being in bonuses that can be reduced or removed at any time is a standard and acceptable practice.
Also, who the fuck compares a minimum wage wafflehouse waitress to a six-figure banker?
I don't think it's a problem with the language at all. Obviously, my understanding of the word "bonus" is appropriate and correct, in that those individuals in the "consistently paid and makes up a large percentage of your comp" suddenly found out how inconsistent it can be.
Once again, they made the mistake of relying on an uncertainty. I don't care if it's standard practice, this should teach them why it was a bad financial decision and to either re-negotiate their salaries to be more dependable or stable, or begin looking for work in more stable fields.
I don't disagree, except that I do find the plight of people who are suddenly being paid much less than experience and industry practice had led them to believe they would be paid to be sympathetic. I don't think it makes sense to look at someone who made $140k in salary and $300k in bonus for each of the last few years and say that he was irresponsible for not living solely off the base in those years.
I don't feel sympathetic for someone who wears wingsuits and eventually crashes and dies. I don't feel sympathetic for someone who races cars and eventually crashes it and dies. I don't feel sympathetic for someone who goes to live with the bears and eventually gets eaten by them and dies. And I definitely don't feel sympathetic for someone who decides to take their bonuses and tie it up into their regular budget, especially if their base salary is more money than I've been able to make (combined) in my 27 years on this planet.
Edit: not to say I take any sort of happiness from these situations, but again, sympathy? I feel sympathetic for someone who's not taking risks and gets fucked over, not for someone who's putting themselves in danger and gets fucked over. Their family and friends? Yes. But they themselves knew the risk of their actions.
As would I. But not for one the ones who had to make a "painful lifestyle adjustment" when their pay scheme went from $140k base with $300k bonuses to $140k base with $150k bonuses. If someone can't figure out how to make at least $140k a year a living wage, that person and I need to switch jobs. Like, immediately.
I don't think it's a problem with the language at all. Obviously, my understanding of the word "bonus" is appropriate and correct, in that those individuals in the "consistently paid and makes up a large percentage of your comp" suddenly found out how inconsistent it can be.
Once again, they made the mistake of relying on an uncertainty. I don't care if it's standard practice, this should teach them why it was a bad financial decision and to either re-negotiate their salaries to be more dependable or stable, or begin looking for work in more stable fields.
I don't disagree, except that I do find the plight of people who are suddenly being paid much less than experience and industry practice had led them to believe they would be paid to be sympathetic. I don't think it makes sense to look at someone who made $140k in salary and $300k in bonus for each of the last few years and say that he was irresponsible for not living solely off the base in those years.
I don't feel sympathetic for someone who wears wingsuits and eventually crashes and dies. I don't feel sympathetic for someone who races cars and eventually crashes it and dies. I don't feel sympathetic for someone who goes to live with the bears and eventually gets eaten by them and dies. And I definitely don't feel sympathetic for someone who decides to take their bonuses and tie it up into their regular budget, especially if their base salary is more money than I've been able to make (combined) in my 27 years on this planet.
Edit: not to say I take any sort of happiness from these situations, but again, sympathy? I feel sympathetic for someone who's not taking risks and gets fucked over, not for someone who's putting themselves in danger and gets fucked over. Their family and friends? Yes. But they themselves knew the risk of their actions.
I take a tremendous amount of happiness in this; glee, even.
These are the people who are getting hit by this:
Like, the only thing that would make me happier is if they were getting fired, and not getting unemployment or severance. These are awful fucking people, who deliberately chose to work in an industry where their job consists of "fuck over as many people as possible to make as much money as possible." I want to see them fucking burn. The best thing that could happen for us as a society would be if finance became seen as an industry where there is no future.
Thanatos on
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
We used to get 'bonuses' at Walmart. Profit Sharing! Every Quarter!
based on how well your store performed on not being robbed, no accidents, and other things! It could range anywhere from $20 to this one time, I actually got $300!!!
let me tell you! that extra $300 was awesome! I was able to pay off the electric company to keep the heat on in the apartment on time! Instead of having to play 'when can i write the check so that it won't bounce but will hti the bank the same time the money does?" game!
Verizon did the same thing, only ours were yearly. That bonus ranged around $400-$700 I think while I was there.
It was extra cash. Not something that anybody really banked on for important things. They used to give it to us right before christmas, so that was how lots of folks paid for christmas presents and stuff.
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Of course. And the interest on the loan will be far below what equivalent income would be taxed at.
You have to go through a fucking phenomenal amount of paperwork and shit to keep food stamps
Here in Wisconsin they've contracted food stamps and medicaid out to a private agency that just flat out denies claims the first few times in an effort to get rid of people, they also blatantly lie and are impossible to directly talk to, unless you've got 3 hours to wait in hold during working hours (which coincidentally line up almost perfectly with the working hours of most people!)
They like to accuse you of fraud too! Last time I had to talk to someone in an "interview" she was giving me the third degree about why I haven't started attending university yet (I'm picking up transferable credits at the 2/3 lower cost community college I got my AAS at) and trying to paint me as someone living off the government teat since I work at the school. She also accused me of forging the Earnings Verification document I submitted because "it didn't look right" and told me to get a new one and resubmit it (this involves driving over an hour to where payroll is at, as they wont do it otherwise).
Yeah I'd totally put up with that if I won the lottery. I don't even want to put up with it now and the $120 I get this month I actually need
Can you feel their pain?
Wealth accumulated within the financial sector has far less stimulus power on the economy than money spent directly on goods and services. Eventually some of that money does get spent on things that actually produce real wealth, but not as much.
This is one of the reasons behind Japan's lost decade, this is also the reason why unemployment has a far more positive stimulus effect than tax cuts. This is also why a little bit of wealth redistribution is good for the economy, despite libertarians' arguments to the contrary.
That's not to say that saving large amounts of money is unilaterally undesirable. That would be insane.
We can also achieve a similar effect by monetary policy that is a little bit more inflationary than what we do now. The finance sector hates inflation - it makes their interest gains worth less, but it makes them invest more aggressively in growing businesses. That can be a good thing.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I have so much sympathy for someone who spent (nearly) my annual income last year on their dog
Right. Smoking behavior is really inflexible (hey, it's addictive) so that was probably a bad example.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I can feel the pain behind my eye where the blood clot is growing from reading these people think these are real fucking problems.
Boo hoo, your kids have to leave private school. Fuck off. I lost free lunches in high school thanks to budget cuts and I still couldn't afford to pay for them.
We already discussed this article a few pages ago. One thing people should keep in mind is the the decision to live in the city may be contingent on sending your kids to private school, so having to pull them out is equivalent to having your house rezoned from a good district to a bad district. Is that really so unsympathetic?
Compared to actual problems? Yes. They're not on the same level. I can understand where they're coming from, but its a position of such privileged and so far removed from reality that I cannot sympathize with it.
It's a bit like some guy in Africa looking at the problems of the poor in American and thinking "Jeeze, fucking spoiled brats" though obviously on an even larger scale.
However, I do not sympathize with people who want to defund public schools. I want to send my kids to private school, and I want to pay taxes to make sure public school kids have good resources.
I don't get particularly outraged when rich people say "I want to buy rich person things!" It's only when they start to bitch about taxes or big government or suck Ayn Rand's dick (yes, I'm pretty sure she had one) that I get irritated.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
It is also why ironically enough you can have a true tax in cigarette smoking, aince demand for cigarettes is generally inelastic. That said, the high levels cigarette taxes in the US seem to be designed to actually reduce demand, which should be workable since they are not truly inelastic. In a sense, the perfect tax would be one based on oxygen consumption, since demand is truly inelastic. Of course, the logistics would be impossible to overcome.
Would you have the same reaction if they lived in a good district, and then were rezoned to a bad one?
Yeah, that's the other reason why I have trouble with outrage at articles like that. There are people who don't have homes, food, or basic medical care, who are suffering from diseases that I could treat for multiple years with the money I just spent on an Xbox game.
I still reserve the right to bitch about #firstworldproblems sometimes, and I don't really want to feel like a Bad Person if somebody catches me complaining that my cell phone bill is too high.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I don't think you understand that it isn't the same thing no matter how much you're trying to paint it as.
In Florida, and that's the only public school system I can speak with confidence to, you can do school choice to go to your old school if you get rezoned, or decide you want to go to a better school. That's also the public school system. It isn't my job to make sure you can send your kids to a private school. If it's that important, you'll find a way.
Also, if you're counting on a bonus, something which is by definition variable, to fund you way of life, it may be time to rethink your spending habits.
Of course, the most egregious part of it is their endless bitching about Problems Only Rich People Have, while themselves being responsible not only for those very same problems they are having, but for far far worse problems the rest of the world is suffering from.
When you send millions of Americans into abject poverty and then lobby to have their benefits slashed, you don't get to bitch about not being able to send your kids to private school. Not unless we get to drag out the guillotines right afterwords.
Whoops.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
They're not really bonuses though. In some fields, they form the majority of your compensation, and the level is very predictable. Taking law as an example, bonuses are generally lockstep, and everyone knows what the bonus schedule will be for each year, just like everyone knows the salary scale. Then in 2008, bonuses were cut severely, and they are still much lower than they used to be. I do not think it was unreasonable for someone in 2004 or 2006 to make plans on the assumption that they would continue to receive bonuses on the scale that they had always been paid at.
Spacekungfuman is correct that they do form a very large part of the overall compensation package, but market volatility isn't exactly brand new (see early 2000s and the internet boom and bust.)
I guess they should have taken more accounting classes.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
But if you beat the market...
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
By calling it a bonus (1) you can decide not to pay it to someone part way through the year (2) you get to exclude it from base comp so that raises look bigger and (3) you get the good will of giving people big bonuses at the end of the year. In law, our bonuses are not most of our comp, but they are still pretty big. They used to be 20%+ of your base, and now they are more like a litte over an extra month's pay.
Which is understandable, but a bit silly. Bonuses are discretionary. I understand the reasons why somebody might come to rely on them, but you shouldn't. Put that shit in a retirement fund, buy a big TV, go on vacation, donate it to charity, open a CD... but don't incorporate it into your budget, no matter how reliable you think it is.
These aren't blue collar factory workers we're talking about. They're people who work in finance. This is like a doctor who smokes. They should know better.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Which just makes them silly and naive at best, since they appear to not understand the purpose of bonuses as part of a compensation structure. (hint - it's to make your payroll flexible during downturns)
But what if your bonus is 70% of your total comp? There isn't a tv big enough to use that up in the world
Edit: For what its worth, the average bonus for a big law associate last year was reduced (relative to 2007 levels) by an amount that is more than the average salary in America. When bonuses are that large (in a nonbonus driven field, no less) its hard to blame people for planning around them, and for being upset about the loss.
Also, the question is not "what if your bonus is 70% of your total comp". The question should be "can you get by at a level you're comfortable with only the other 30%", because if the answer is "no", you got fucked in your salary negotiations.
Salary negotiations are not even a thing in a lot of these high bonus fields though. They have a fixed salary, take it or leave it.
I think part of the problem is just the language we are using. A bonus which may or may not be paid, and is relatively small as a percentage of comp is very different from a bonus which is consistently paid and which makes up a large percentage of your comp, and both are very different from a CEO who receives the majority of their compensation as a performance bonus for tax purposes.
Once again, they made the mistake of relying on an uncertainty. I don't care if it's standard practice, this should teach them why it was a bad financial decision and to either re-negotiate their salaries to be more dependable or stable, or begin looking for work in more stable fields.
I don't disagree, except that I do find the plight of people who are suddenly being paid much less than experience and industry practice had led them to believe they would be paid to be sympathetic. I don't think it makes sense to look at someone who made $140k in salary and $300k in bonus for each of the last few years and say that he was irresponsible for not living solely off the base in those years.
That doesn't make it any less dumb though
My suggestion to them is to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Or just find a better job; I hear McDonald's is hiring.
Not really, because it's not a tip, and employers in service industries that don't pay a living wage so that their employees NEED tips to survive day to day is just as fucked up and unethical as convincing an entire industry that 70% of your compensation being in bonuses that can be reduced or removed at any time is a standard and acceptable practice.
Also, who the fuck compares a minimum wage wafflehouse waitress to a six-figure banker?
I don't feel sympathetic for someone who wears wingsuits and eventually crashes and dies. I don't feel sympathetic for someone who races cars and eventually crashes it and dies. I don't feel sympathetic for someone who goes to live with the bears and eventually gets eaten by them and dies. And I definitely don't feel sympathetic for someone who decides to take their bonuses and tie it up into their regular budget, especially if their base salary is more money than I've been able to make (combined) in my 27 years on this planet.
Edit: not to say I take any sort of happiness from these situations, but again, sympathy? I feel sympathetic for someone who's not taking risks and gets fucked over, not for someone who's putting themselves in danger and gets fucked over. Their family and friends? Yes. But they themselves knew the risk of their actions.
As would I. But not for one the ones who had to make a "painful lifestyle adjustment" when their pay scheme went from $140k base with $300k bonuses to $140k base with $150k bonuses. If someone can't figure out how to make at least $140k a year a living wage, that person and I need to switch jobs. Like, immediately.
These are the people who are getting hit by this:
Like, the only thing that would make me happier is if they were getting fired, and not getting unemployment or severance. These are awful fucking people, who deliberately chose to work in an industry where their job consists of "fuck over as many people as possible to make as much money as possible." I want to see them fucking burn. The best thing that could happen for us as a society would be if finance became seen as an industry where there is no future.
based on how well your store performed on not being robbed, no accidents, and other things! It could range anywhere from $20 to this one time, I actually got $300!!!
let me tell you! that extra $300 was awesome! I was able to pay off the electric company to keep the heat on in the apartment on time! Instead of having to play 'when can i write the check so that it won't bounce but will hti the bank the same time the money does?" game!
Verizon did the same thing, only ours were yearly. That bonus ranged around $400-$700 I think while I was there.
It was extra cash. Not something that anybody really banked on for important things. They used to give it to us right before christmas, so that was how lots of folks paid for christmas presents and stuff.
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