Outrage Over $2.5 Billion Bonus For Lehman Brothers New York Staff

Up to 10,000 staff at the New York office of the bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers will share a bonus pool set aside for them that is worth $2.5bn (£1.4bn), Barclays Bank, which is buying the business, confirmed last night.

The revelation sparked fury among the workers' former colleagues, Lehman's 5,000 staff based in London, who currently have no idea how long they will go on receiving even their basic salaries, let alone any bonus payments. It also prompted a renewed backlash over the compensation culture in global finance, with critics claiming that many bankers receive pay and rewards that bore no relation to the job they had done.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[watchingthings]

It seems to me that they deserve what that CEO in India got. Bosses like them incite violence against themselves from the investors they "shafted" and then "shafted again as they departed.

[roxn]

That's probably the money that came for the London office on the Friday before the bankruptcy was announced.

They said they sent the New York Lehman office $5 billion as is usual and were expecting it back on Monday.

The bankruptcy was announced on Sunday and the money was never returned ~ so the $140 million needed to pay the month's salaries was not available.

[watchTVgetSTUPID]

How much of the $700 billion goes to bonuses for hedge fund managers?
My guess is about 100 billion (they think big and take big)

[watchTVgetSTUPID]

Enforce RICO laws against white collar organized crime. These crooks pretend they legitimately received the money. But the reality is they conspired with others to fabricate a paper trail to cover their tracks as they defraud the investors, defraud the stock holders, and no defraud the government.

Enforce RICO
Its not just a good idea
It is the Law

[jonolennon]

Tack on to the bailout that all credit card debt for individuals is wiped off the books. Everyone starts with a clean slate.....and if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow. Maybe it is time to let capitalism die.

[rosalala]

Write your senators! They're not done with this emergency bailout yet. It's the least we can do short of rioting.

[fistbump]

This would be a good time to get Stephen Schwarzman and his hedge fund cronies to pay regular income tax instead of the lower 15% capital gains tax on their earnings.

[opinion123]

Well, that's exactly what's happening to you in Washington, D.C. Paulson and the other Bush henchmen are attempting to sell you aluminum siding for your brick house. This has nothing to do with the upcoming election! It has to do with a lame-duck president having SEIZING a last minute push to take a run on the future financial security of an entire country by stealing via legislative capitulation over one trillion dollars from the taxpayers. Instead of impeaching this tyrant, the democratic majority in congress is going to allow him and his minions to ripoff the country off. This theft will have effects lasting long past our life time. If there is a GOD, he/it certainly will have overlooked America if Bush and the republicans get away with this. Then again, Satan has equal rights! If GOD doesn't give it to him, the democrats seem more that willing. $700 Billion! Are they MAD?

[deeppeace]

What the bloody #$^! is it going to take to get people out in the streets?!?! People are more concerned about their iPhones than they are their country. Unbelievable.

[Kindheart]

Why aren't we marching on Washington? Paulson sits there and says, "Woe is me" and we have so
many problems and the fallen 150 year old company has all that money for their executives. You insult us!! My retirement accounts are significantly lower in value and they have to worry about how to split this bonus pool.

[texanna]

Let's see if I've got this correctly -- the people who tanked the oldest financial institution are considered desirable personnel assets and as such must be retained by giving them a piece of a $2.5BN pie? First, how can anyone that made such stupid financial decisions be considered desirable personnel? Second, why is that $2.5BN untouchable? Big corporations have no problem abbrogating their pension contracts with the working class and leaving them high and dry. Why are the rules different just because you wear a business suit? More and more those Wall Street guys are looking like just a bunch of cockroaches scurrying to get out of the light that was just flipped on in the kitchen.

[kevmo]

Well said! These guys are pulling the equivalent of scuttling off the Titanic by wearing women's dresses.

[GoCards1978]

Can you say "chutzpah"? If I was a London employee of Lehman Brothers, I'd start looking for a way to file a class action suit against these well-dressed pirates.

[turfkiller]

Regan's trickle down economics has been turned into trickle down Communism. Good Job Bushie!

[skiergirl]

This is ridiculous. The attorneys for Lehman's creditors should go after the $2.5 billion to satisfy Lehman's debts.

[trollsbwild]

Amen. I have never seen bounuses awarded for behavior bordering on criminality. Which raises the issue of why all bonuees given out in the last five years should not be given back by these CEO's in the wake of his financial disaster.
Guess crime is paying very well these days if you have the right friends.

[mnkors]

Actually, the hefty bonuses have been awarded for quasi-criminal financial activity during the last 8 years, after the Gramm deregulation fiat in 1999.
Should not all the golden parachutes be suspended at the very first peep of the bailout?

[mjtaylor22]

how are they getting bonuses and they are bankrupt, all their creditors should be in court demanding full paymnent. how can you ruin a company that has been around since 1930 at least and get billions of bonus dollars.
BILLIONS IN BONUS MONEY FOR BANKRUPTCY.............