I looked around and saw two guys in uniform standing at attention near the elevators. I hadn't noticed them when I arrived, as I was reading the newspaper. "What's up with that?," I asked.
"Someone's getting fired," he responded.
The 35th floor of Chase was very quiet, I suddenly noticed.
A few minutes later another trader walked in, nose buried in his newspaper, on the way to his desk. The guards, one of whom carried a cardboard box, followed him and just before he reached his desk told him to pack his things in the box and come with them. He reached for a phone but the guard was quicker. "No calls," he said, "pack your stuff and let's go."
It was a scary scene, but on reflection, as I still had a job (I was later to be on the other side of this issue), it made me feel as if banking (at least on the trading side) was a place where Capitalism reigned. Perform and you get very well paid. Screw up, and you're fired.
Or so I thought.
I've spent much of the past 2 days downloading data from the FDIC (more on those details in my next post) and was amazed to discover the best uptrend in the financial markets is banking salaries and employee benefits. One look at the graph below and I realized Lloyd Blankfein must be right. Bankers are doing God's work (or at least being compensated as if).
the data is skewed somewhat higher from the late 90s on by the repeal of Glass Steagall
You might think, if Bank employees are doing well, the owners must be doing even better. If these banks were more privately owned I would agree, but they aren't. It's apparently much better to work for a big bank (smaller banks don't pay even their top guys that well, as I found drilling down in the data) than to own it, just ask the gang at Goldman. The graph of cash dividends isn't nearly as pretty (but you can't argue with any dividend for 2008 or 2009, given the recent crisis, if you're an owner).
If you aren't a bank share owner but simply a taxpayer hoping the Fed won't let the currency in which you're remunerated shrink in value, you can argue plenty.
Recent news headlines proclaiming the wondrous profit (of $7B, not enough to pay salaries and bonuses of the top men at the big 5 US Bank holding companies) ready to be realized by the government with the sale of Citibank (brokered by these same bankers) miss the point. The Fed's balance sheet exploded to ensure that the Bankers who approved the loans which fomented the crisis could provision (inadequately, I suspect, as I'll discuss next time) against the losses and get paid handsomely for their shoddy work.
We'll all pay the price for that down the road and it may not be that far ahead. Irish banks have gone back to their government for yet another infusion of capital. Back here in the US, Elizabeth Warren of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel is warning of an impending commercial real estate loan crisis.
When the next crisis hits, (not too long now, I suspect) the Bankers won't need a TARP, they'll need some flak jackets.
As Paul Volcker said today, the banks must face a credible threat of closure. Ultimately the failing firm should be liquidated or merged. In all... it is a death sentence, not a rescue at the hospital.
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