Alex Higgins's Page

Today, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced that Wall Street paid out $20.3 billion of bonuses in 2009, up 17% from 2008. Bonuses at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley rose by 31%.

Given the lingering problems in the economy and high unemployment, one wonders what these executives could have done to merit these awards. Let's not forget that these are the same banks that had to be bailed out with taxpayer money in order to avoid collapsing.

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According to Bloomberg this morning, JPMorgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, received a $17 million stock award bonus for 2009. While none of it was in cash, it would have been better to have that stock tied to some actual performance measurements rather than just be market-based - most restricted stock and stock options can earn value if the market goes up, despite th

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If you aren't outraged by AIG yet, you will be. According to The New York Times, AIG will distribute about $100 million to the very division that was the root cause of the company's meltdown. Even though the employees of the financial products unit agreed to take a 10% cut in their bonuses, the contracts to pay them were in place before the taxpayers bailed them out.

To put this into perspective, AIG's Fi… Continue

Investors are coming together and speaking out on the issue of Say on Pay. According to the press release below, approximately thirty investors have sent letters to 17 different financial firms urging them to implement Say on Pay this proxy season. ShareOwners endorses this initiative and urges others to vote in favor of the resolutions.

"Say on Pay" is a non-binding advisory vote on executive compensation - it allows investors to voice their concerns about executive pay and lets the board of d… Continue