How much money does a person need?
. ——–Just a little more. (blog comment)
Goldman Sachs announced the end-of-year bonuses for its employees. A whopping 16.5 BILLION! Several top traders are said to make close to $100 million. Other employees are not too happy with their piece of bonus pie, though. In London, Goldman Sachs’ office cleaners are threatening to strike because of wage cutbacks (so that’s where the money comes from). Some statistician tried to explain to them that the average bonus was calculated at $623,418 per employee, nearly double what other firms are paying out. The cleaners weren’t buying it and objected to the zillification.
Source: The New York Times, article by Andrew Ross Sorkin, December 17, 2006.
Real estate brokers in New York City and the Tri-state area are often third party beneficiaries of this booty call. So the holidays should be a little more festive and the new year a little happier. With all the high-end real estate likely to be bought the next quarter, Manhattan’s median sales prices should also rise, giving chartists and statisticians some lovely upward graphs to draw. I’m not sure it will mean much to the city’s office cleaning people.
Guess the corporate philosophy is simple…Make us big money and we’ll give you a big bonus. If not, your salary will be cut or you’ll be fired.