Wall Street Pay Bouncing Back, Conforming to Historical Reality

Here is some evidence to the contrary that 1) everything is different now on Wall Street and 2) the banking crisis and bank earnings are still at their worst.

Article after article has made the case that Wall Street is dead, and that high end college grads will be flocking to other fields because the financial world will not be the high salaried mecca that is has always been since the beginning of modern time.

Trust us when we say that predicting Wall Street's demise is the same as predicting the end of prostitution, or gambling, or eating, or breathing air. The places of business might move or disperse, the names might change, the structure of the firms might change (from investment bank to bank holding firm to privately held to...) and the compensation levels might fluctuate. That's about it. If you have a capitalist system, you then will have your money and finance men, and you will have your street of Wall, no matter what you actually call it.

Here arrives the New York Times to shock us with the news that compensation is quite lofty at the leading financial firms, and that, in effect, nothing is much different at all. We thank them for noticing the obvious, and perhaps they will use this news to become more tuned in to human nature.

If that pace continues all year, the money set aside for compensation suggests that workers at many banks will see their pay — much of it in bonuses — recover from the lows of last year.

“I just haven’t seen huge changes in the way people are talking about compensation,” said Sandy Gross, managing partner of Pinetum Partners, a financial recruiting firm. “Wall Street is being realistic. You have to retain your human capital.”

Brad Hintz, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, was more critical. “Like everything on Wall Street, they’re starting to sin again,” he said. “As you see a recovery, you’ll see everybody’s compensation beginning to rise.”

(N.Y. Times)


Money being what it is--and what it is is like oxygen or blood--the men and women (meaning men) who can manage it, make it grow, put it to work, will always demand and receive more than the average share of bucks. Past, present, future.