A Goldman Sachs International adviser defended compensation in the finance industry as his company plans a near-record year for pay, saying the spending will help boost the economy.“We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all,” Brian Griffiths, who was a special adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, said yesterday at a panel discussion hosted by St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The panel’s discussion topic was, “What is the price of morality in the marketplace?”
Did I miss something? Do the ultra-wealthy spend widely? I thought they bought a few high ticket items, including land and yachts, and socked away most of their money in offshore accounts. It must be their golf memberships that contribute to the economy in a big way.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., based in New York, set aside $16.7 billion for compensation and benefits in the first nine months of 2009, up 46 percent from a year earlier and enough to pay each worker $527,192 for the period. The amount set aside this year is just shy of the all-time high $16.9 billion allocated in the first three quarters of 2007.
Wow. And I thought it had been a bad year for financial institutes.
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