If the IMF is right, we have only 10 months or so to wait for economic recovery. That must delight those hard-working folks on Wall Street whose bonuses are probably relatively lean this year. A year or two ago, those bonuses were so enormous that they reduced the value of a $350,000 salary to the level of "play money." Made $350,000 a year? You could get a $35,000,000 bonus if you worked at Merrill. Your buddies "also pocketed large paychecks."
Bonuses are supposed to reflect the relative profits in any given year. As it happened, profits were way down at Merrill Lynch at the time. Nonetheless, bonuses continued and were not reversed. They continue. Happy holidays to one and all!
Even as the crash was getting underway and Merrill Lynch traders in mortgage investments (among many others) couldn't avoid knowing what was going to happen, they continued to make enormous personal profits. Relatively speaking, much of their bonus came in the form of cash, not stock. So they didn't have to worry about the huge cracks appearing in the subprime mortgage market. Relatively speaking, they had managed to insulate themselves from the results of their decisions and from he world of people who have lost their homes and who suffer the additional pain of being considered "predatory borrowers."
As I said, have a happy holiday. Don't spend too much. Above all, don't spend too much time wondering how much of the $700 billion is finding its way into the bonus envelopes of those bankers. With any luck, relatively little. If you want something to worry about, you've got those killer asteroids.
