Digby points out that the enormous bonuses Goldman Sachs employees are paying themselves this year -- proportionally even bigger than last year, despite the company having its poorest earnings performance since 1999 -- look rather like looting:
If I didn't know better, I'd think these people were looting their own company in anticipation of a massive failure: "Goldman Sachs will stoke the fury over bankers' bonuses this week when it increases the proportion of revenues paid to staff despite what could be its worst year for earnings since 1999. The bank – which will report its final results for 2011 on Wednesday – has already set aside 44 per cent of the $22.76bn (£14.89bn) of revenues it generated during the first nine months of the year to pay staff. The lion's share will be shared by a small number of elite level "partners". If pay remains at that level in the fourth quarter, the final compensation ratio will show a significant rise over the 39.3 per cent of revenues handed out by Goldman in 2010, when the total pay out was $15.38bn. Although the average salary for the first nine months enjoyed by Goldman employees is down to $292,397 from $370.056 in the first three quarters of 2010, that the bankers' share of revenue is rising will anger critics. This would counter banking industry arguments that remuneration policies are set up to reward those who generate good performance for all the bank's shareholders rather than just to keep senior staff in the manner to which they have become accustomed."
Two things. First, the fact that even at Goldman Sachs, "elite" executives' pay is rising while general employees pay is falling would be absolutely hysterical if it were not synchronized with the same trend in the broader corporate world (ok -- it is still hysterical -- a few minutes with @GSElevator will rid anyone of anything like sympathy for Sachs employees). Second, there's something deeply ironic about the way Randians use the term "looters", isn't there?