Thanks to the working Americans who funded the banks' bailouts, banking giants and CEOs were able to get up, brush themselves off, and walk away from the financial crisis relatively unscathed. It is in no way acceptable, however, that their version of 'jumping back into the saddle' means continuing to pay out big figure bonuses to the architects of our economic collapse. Recent data from eFinancialCareers.com shows that financial professionals still think that the middle class should still be taking it on the chin to pad their pockets:
According to the survey, 83 percent of Wall Street professionals expect to receive bonuses this year, and one-third expect to receive even bigger bonuses than they did in 2008.
"You can't change 200 years of history overnight," said John Benson, founder and CEO of eFinancialCareers.com. "...Changing the pay structure is going to be an iterative process, because there are always unintended consequences to every change."
Although just over half of the 1,074 financial services professionals who participated in the survey noted their firms have revised bonus policies, most respondents said the attitudes towards the extreme risk taking that got us here in the first place hasn't changed. After all, why should bankers do things any differently when there is nothing to discourage their behavior? The typical worker has seen their 401k go down 24.3 percent, but Wall Street bonuses remain bigger than ever. The phrase "undeserved entitlement" comes to mind, to say the least.
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I have worked in the banking industry for over 10 years and i can honestly say that a very large percentage of customer service, collection and branch reps are absolutely fed up with the way we are treated while bank management and executives continue to receive top pay and bonuses.. In the mean time hundreds of thousands of non management bank employees have been faced with incredibly unfair treatment, major income reductions and threats of being terminated for not complying with absurd "new" requirements.. My question is this, has anyone ever approached this enormous population of non management bank employees? Is it even possible to unionize such a broad workforce within the banking industry?? People in the banking industry seem petrified to even say the word "union"?? I and many other bankers like me would welcome a union with open arms so that we too can be represented fairly and protected.. The banks made cutbacks.. cutbacks against all the little people - non management employees.. while we all fear for our jobs every day and struggle to survive and comply with their absurd requirements, management and executives continue to be awarded outrageous salaries, bonuses & benefits..