Wall Street is a perfect representation of Wall Street values: a constant and ever-increasing accumulation of wealth in the hands of a smaller and smaller elite. You'll be happy to know that Wall Street is continuing perfectly down this path, by laying workers off while raising the wages of the lucky few that remain.
Another fiscal year has come and gone, another set of months spent toiling away under the harsh artificial lights of Wall Street-area trading floors, another year of love delayed and walks not taken, in favor of the single-minded pursuit of revenue. Another report on what it all added up to, via Dealbook:
The report showed that total compensation on Wall Street last year rose 4 percent, to more than $60 billion. That was higher than any total except those in 2007 and 2008 - before the financial crisis fully took its toll on pay.
The average pay package of securities industry employees in New York State was $362,950, up 16.6 percent over the last two years.
And the fact that Wall Street firms have "cut 1,200 jobs since the beginning of 2012 and could contract further over the remainder of the year" is not an anomaly. It makes perfect sense. In order for pay to constantly climb higher and higher, even in the midst of widespread financial ruin, it is sometimes necessary to shrink the pool of people being paid. The only alternative would be paying people slightly less, which is so unthinkable as to be amusing, and to reveal the proposer of such a farce to be little more than a rube.
Wall Street employees are scheduled to be paid slightly more next year, and every year hereafter, until the year of the revolution.
[Image via]