I'm sorry If I'm about to offend you.
I'm surfing the net in the hopes of finding some reputable new source claiming that mortgage lenders are to blame for this current state of economy, and I come across this page.
I spent about 3 minutes reading, just enough to tell that there are some of you who are well versed in your respective arguments and those who aren't.
However, I must say - WTF are you doing spending seconds, minutes, hours on a proverbial News site arguing over mute points?!
Are your dicks so small that you inherently find a need to spend countless time arguing over the language of the 21st century, instead of spending that time loving, nourishing, and caring for family and friends? helping those in your community?
I must say, it does NOT amaze me that the economy, and more so civilization as a whole is so rampantly decrepit. And that is because of people like YOU, yes YOU, the person who takes the time to read this entirely useless posting.
Do yourself and someone else a favor, push the shiny button that has the broken circle with the line protruding from the top, then find the nearest person, give them a hug; then find the nearest bridge and jump off it.
Who's to Blame?
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Bond trader: $1.5 million, with $240,000 in base pay, $975,000 in cash bonus and $310,000 in long-term bonus.
Hedge fund manager: $1.8 million, split between a salary of $265,000 and $1.5 million bonus.
Just why investment bankers and traders outearn, say, doctors or computer engineers is a question I've never heard convincingly answered. Are they smarter? Unlikely. Do they contribute more to the economy? Questionable. True, Wall Street often performs a vital function. It channels savings into productive investments. It helps provide access to capital and credit. In 2006, U.S. companies raised nearly $4 trillion through new stocks and bonds. Many financial innovations, including mortgage-backed securities, have benefited individuals and companies.
But Wall Street also frequently misallocates capital and credit. The "tech bubble" of the late 1990s was one episode. Now we have subprime mortgages. Why? Well, the herd mentality of financial crazes has a long history. But compensation practices skewed so heavily toward bonuses based on annual profits make matters worse.
"People self-select for careers. On Wall Street they self-select for the money," says pay consultant Alan Johnson. "Wall Street is a sales business—they sell bonds, securities, transactions, ideas … They're not paid to be long-term, philosophical, reflective." The pressure is to do the next merger, sell more stocks and bonds, do more trading—whatever boosts current profits and bonuses, the long-term consequences be damned.
"These are my MBA students, not just mine but MBAs from Harvard, Stanford, Pennsylvania," says economist Allan Meltzer of Carnegie-Mellon University. "They were buying and selling this garbage [subprime mortgage securities]. Are they so stupid? They got compensated for doing it. If they didn't do it they'd lose their jobs."
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