Democracy for Vancouver

From our international banker this morning:

The G-20 meeting in Capetown met expectations, which were low. There were the concerns over the falling dollar and subprime but no fresh approaches were suggested. IMF officials even seem to welcome the dollar’s decline was needed medicine to address global imbalances. And regarding imbalances, …bonuses on Wall Street for the five largest investment banks will be around $38 billion this year with the average payout to 186,000 investment banking community averaging $201,000. Merrill Lynch will pay out $9 billion.

That would be these top five investment banks:

Bear Stearns:

Bear Stearns Cos.’ credit rating was cut by Standard & Poor’s after the securities firm said it would write down the value of subprime assets by $1.2 billion, leading to its first quarterly loss since becoming a public company.
…
Chief Executive Officer James “Jimmy” Cayne has cut 900 jobs, or about 6 percent of the workforce. Even as he pursues “significant steps” to contain costs, Cayne’s efforts may be hampered by “the company’s need to remain competitive in terms of compensation,” S&P said.

Goldman Sachs:

Goldman, of course, has made its share of mistakes. It took among the most serious write-downs in the third quarter on loans that were made to private equity firms, totaling $1.5 billion. The firm runs one of the largest hedge fund operations in the world, but its flagship funds — funds whose investors include marquee Goldman clients and employees — have had two years of abysmal performance.

Lehman Brothers:

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc said on Tuesday quarterly earnings fell 3.2 percent on writedowns linked to mortgages and leveraged loans…

Lehman said it wrote down some $700 million of residential mortgage positions and loan commitments, after accounting for gains in its hedges, and said the outlook for credit looks better.

Merrill Lynch:

But now is no time to be buying Merrill’s stock. Simply put, the company still faces immense mortgage-related losses and a market for investment banking services that is looking wobbly at best.

…Estimates for next year’s profits are sure to slip. After writing down the value of its subprime-related securities by a stunning $8 billion last month, Merrill still has about $21 billion of subprime exposure.
…
Merrill also faces the prospect of declining profits in its investment banking unit. Retreating from lucrative bond underwriting activities could cut the firm’s net income by $1.4 billion next year, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Brad Hintz.

Morgan Stanley:

The drumbeat of subprime losses continued on Wall Street on Wednesday. After the closing bell, Morgan Stanley said it had suffered $3.7 billion in losses over the last two months on its portfolio of mortgage-related investments.

Worse yet, the brokerage said its losses may balloon to $6 billion if the markets continue to sour.

The bankers get the bonuses, while the taxpayers bail out the bankers.

[emphasis added.]