Comments on: Wall Street’s Bonus System Was a Major Financial Crisis Catalyst

By: Please Keep The Pigs Penned When Finalizing The Stimulus Bill

Please Keep The Pigs Penned When Finalizing The Stimulus Bill — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 15:12:55 +0000

[...] (However, if you do want to read more about it, Smart Profits Report sister publication Money Morning has a free detailed analysis of the problem right here.) [...]

By: John Lawrence

John Lawrence — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:29:49 +0000

Shah Gilani writes that “compensation should not be regulated by any government. There are, however, limits that need to be applied to compensation [...]”

Mr. Gilani would make a great politician, would he not? What exactly is your position, Mr. Gilani, other than that you would like to have your cake and eat it too?

While Mr. Gilani’s stance is not apparent, what is apparent is that the principle of freedom and liberty is completely lost on Mr. Gilani as well as every comment-poster to this page. I understand taxpayer concern over how their money is spent, but why attack the bankers rather than the morally bankrupt politicians who are choosing to bail them out? I suppose the answer to this is simple: fear. The politicians have convinced the masses that the world will end if we let our current banking system fail. Common sense would tell us that as long as there is demand for borrowing and lending in a free market, it certainly will take place, even if we don’t have banks named Citibank, Chase, and Bank of America. In, times like these, however, it is clear that common sense does not prevail, but rather the continued transfer of power into the hands of a small group of elite, who continue to do immense damage to our future prosperity.

When will people wake up?

By: Is President Obama Creating a Better Banking System by Capping Executive Pay?

Is President Obama Creating a Better Banking System by Capping Executive Pay? — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:30:17 +0000

[...] the last 30 years, Wall Street has had a problem with its remuneration system. Base pay was only around $150,000 even for a partner/managing director – not enough to live on for [...]

By: Sandy

Sandy — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:12:08 +0000

Since I can remember all Americans are greedy junk buyers so why cry when some people maximize their greed opportunity, there isn’t one American who wouldn’t take all the money they could get their hands on and not give a damn about the consequences or who pays and goes hungry because you are at stores buying more crap you don’t need, but when bankers do it the outcry is unbelievable, holy hypocrits your greed finally came home to roost.
Canadian viewpoint

By: Carlos E. Comesana

Carlos E. Comesana — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 15:42:09 +0000

Make the fat cats list, sue them and jail them but don’t forget to seize their assets asap.

By: nizar mecklai

nizar mecklai — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 15:36:40 +0000

there is no denying that the global meltdown is in large measure due to wall street’s greed and corruption in marketing junk bonds to unsuspecting or corrupt colluding managements.
executive compensations must be related to real returns paid to shareholders who have risked their savings invested in the corporations and under no circumstances should bonuses be in excess of equivalent shareholder dividend returns. After all the executives are being paid for their services and the ceo should never receive payment in excess of 100 times the average of the rest of the staff and workers.

By: Barbara R.

Barbara R. — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:33:35 +0000

Shah – Thank you for your response to my comment and I am being perfectly serious here. I do not see a difference between receiving a donation from a lobbyist to consider their position when voting on a bill and taking a bribe. Yet the first is done constantly by our politicians while the 2nd is illegal and puts people in jail. Both parties and all politicians are guilty of this! I do not pretend otherwise. Our politicians rail against lobbying and earmarks in bills but our whole tax system is set up to allow all this and it SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED. I sat and listened to the presidential debates and most of it from both sides was what they were going to do to satisfy their various constituencies. There was very little about standing up against all this stuff and doing something for the public and American people in general. Until we totally scrap our tax code and start over I don’t think this will ever be fixed. I am a firm believer in a very simplified flat or fair tax with at most 2 tiers of tax rates and NO DEDUCTIONS for people to get around. It would simplify our lives and be the easiest method IMO to deal with the lobbyists and the earmark issues and get the politicians back to doing what is best for the country as a whole and not their pet supporters. I have a friend who agrees with me. We belong to different parties and we both notice that if we contact a member of Congress of the other party about any subject, WE GET NO RESPONSE – WE GET IGNORED. This is true whether the Democrat is contacting a Republican or vice-versa. If anything, it is more important for politicians to respond to those who disagree with them and their policies than those who agree. Our system is so crooked it is ridiculous!

By: Venture Shadow

Venture Shadow — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:23:26 +0000

Now I know why ex-royalty were guillotined in the French Revolution. When I was a child I thought this was inconceivably cruel and unnecessary. Now I know that it was merely removing highly effective antisocial predators from society. Bring Back The Guillotine.

By: wojtem

wojtem — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 23:31:15 +0000

Well, it is possible to make decent money these days. My associates have started a new Bahamas based SEC registered investment fund (BRUMMA) managed by the Swiss portfolio manager STEBELLO.
In January 2009 this fund was one of 5 most profitable funds out of over 9000 funds in existence.

The fund’s standard deviation is under 7% – in line with the lowest risk bond funds, Sharpe ratio of over 2, ROI around 25%
The mathematical model is screening for stocks which have to comply with the range of set parameters. This strategy creates history of 85% of positive trades. Companies in the portfolio have a capitalization of at least USD 1 bn and liquidity of at least USD 10 mln per day. Exposure to any of the stocks in the portfolio is on average 5 working days. This secures a low correlation of BRUMMA to the stock market performance.

BRUMMA has very transparent fund structure and applies no leverage.

Salaries of the fund managers: NIL

By: Stephanie Waterman

Stephanie Waterman — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:37:18 +0000

Shah Gilani’s article on “Wall Street Bonus System” is very good and for many investors a real eye opener. It is my belief however that the biggest benefactor of this system has been the Federal Government itself via the income tax system. When government engineers accounting scheme’s that cloud’s the basic math of balance sheets it created “fuzzy math”.

The government then incentivizes bad business practices in the name of “helping” the poor into housing ownership. Of which they provided minimal or in many cases zero “after signing” support programs to help these new homeowners develop long term plans and budgets needed for the responsible managment and protection of their newly acquired assets.

Why doesn’t or didn’t the law makers of this country step in and fix the problems they themselves helped to create? The answer is simple, to do so would require cutting off the stream of tax revenues from those “greedy high income earners”. Simply put you can’t keep artifically moving the tax payer goal posts and expect anyone to win the game.

Moving tax payers out of “middle tax brackets” and pushing them into “lower tax brackets” first breaks their moral and reduces the desire to be productive. People with no desire to be productive are more receptive to handouts. Hand outs not only buy votes but also increase the burden on those in the upper tax brackets.

With enormous pressure now upon them our wise law makers now find themselves having to bite clean off the only hand they’ve been feeding from. Yes they have painted themselves into the proverbial corner this time.

I have no fear however that the American people will rebel just like they did in the past. We can only hope that neither we nor the terrorists blow us up 1st.