Wall Street takes 40% of all US corporate profits -- for what important service?

To understand the trends in Wall Street pay, it makes sense to look at how the financial sector ballooned in recent decades, before the financial crisis. In the last 40 years, financial profits went from just under 20 percent of corporate profits to around 40 percent before the financial crisis. Financial company stocks became 22 percent of the Standard & Poor’s financial index by 2006, up from 13 percent in 1999. And in New York City, the capital of finance, nearly $1 out of every $4 that companies paid employees in 2007 went to a financial worker.

As Wall Street grew in influence, its workers’ pay ballooned, increasing sixfold since 1975. That was nearly twice as much as non-financial worker pay increased in the United States, according to data from Moody’s Economy.com.

http://www.nytimes.com/info/wall-street-pay/


I guess fraud & shake-down is "efficient".

Legislators and our President?

This Buy Out is a key function of their good works.

We cannot have some kinda liberal commie pinko DEMOCRACY at this advanced point of sophistication, can we?

So I think they should be taxed to within an inch of their lives to repay social security.

From the small and mid sized business to the larger businesses.

Here's an example: Money was offered up by the Federal reserve. Some Fourteen trillion has gone out of the coffers since the Oct 2008 Bush/Obama Bailout. CNN has a Bailout Tracker page that records everything, so this is not at all made up by me.

Now the money from the Fed was given to the inner circle of Companies and Banks. You have Goldman Sachs asking that the Fed realize the huge peril to the economy that is coming about by the collapse of the economy. GS helps get the Fed to give AIG over 100 billion, and then, SURPRISE SURPRISE - AIG gives GS at least 13 billion as a pass through. And GS goes on to get other billions directly from the Feds.

And when you read that they are paying these monies back to our government - well, often they are taking other TARP monies to accomplish the pay backs. And they get tax breaks to help them make the pay backs. (Wouldn't it be nice if we got tax breaks that let us pay the credit cards or mortgage off! But that woul dbe UGH! Socialism!))

Now meanwhile, the small and mid sized businesses are not able to even get their usual bank loans. When the BailOut was put through,it allowed for the banking industry to re-evaluate everyone. And since the year 2009 was considered to be a bad year, the credit regs were tightened.

So let's look at just one industry - take the dairy farmers in California. The small, mid sized dairies. The farmers that have actual pastures for the cows to be in. The farmers that do not use excessive amounts of antibiotics and that avoid the Bovine Growth Hormone now implicated in diabetes in humans. Traditionally they get loans in the earlier part of the year so that they can make it through the summer. Last year, they got none of those loans, especially if they were the smaller better run dairies.

So those dairy farmers had to slaughter 100,000 cows - that number represents the total "kills" of the herds in just three counties in No Calif.

Meanwhile the BIG DAIRIES, the ones that use feedlots, and raise the cattle in really pathetic and inhumane conditions, they "flourish", as they are part of a larger business empire and they can get credit.

So the healthier farms went under, as the bigger farms with their inhumanity and sickened product "flourish" and of course the consumer loses, as prices are higher and the product is now inferior. And these bigger farms are often subsidiaries of larger conglomerates. And in the end, with all the cows getting the Bovine Growth Hormone, the dread beastie of a company, Monsanto, will get more profit as it will sell much more hormone! More people will get diabetes, so the Big Pharma People make out.

And that is what our nation is all about.

The real terrorists are these Big CorpoRATions and they own the government officials that we think we "vote" for. Meanwhile you and I have to take our shoes off at the airport -while thousands are made sick by the food we eat. But at least the middle class is not guilty of benefiting from the Dread Policies of Socialism!

For some reason, that really gets to me more than most other corporate injustices.

:mad:

All around the area where I live have been devastated.

This was never an easy career, and often involved everyone in the family working very long hours. But in exchange, the consumers reaped a healthy product, and also, the habitat provided by these farms was an immense contribution to a true ecology.

My County is becoming one big over-pesticided Vineyard as we speak. Little rows of metallic trellises with a few grape vine leaves. Pesticides that do not allow for a single earth worm and for very few birds. The deer are without habitat, and so are the predator species, like bobcat, and coyote. And all the other creatures too - the rabbits, possums, skunks, skink, reptiles. And all the fresh clean oxygen from the big live oaks, the pine and manzanita, that is all replaced with the fumes of the pesticides.

I'm sorry to hear that! It makes me sick....there's just something so natural and soothing that goes along with the thought of the small dairy farm. As if everything is all right with the world.

I don't get that same feeling thinking about a vineyard for some reason. But no matter what type of business, there's nothing like a mega-corporation to make my blood boil!

I'm afraid I'm becoming a fanatic in my old age.

by what finance capital does.

To pay attention.

The good people at Clover (Dairy) here in California are really inflating their prices.

I suspect they got a loan, but at no where near the almost 0% interest mark that the bank that loaned it to them received the monies at.

And they just received a major award for humane treatment of their livestock. Even their non-organic milk is better than some of the supposed other "organic" milk. And no Bovine Growth factors to deal with.

<sigh> So fewer stores now carry them, and if they go out of business I will have to buy the crappy "organic" milk coming all the way from Colorado (from a dairy often in the news for violating the organic standards. But hey, what's a small fine?)

instead.

whole facade, while most of us are more like livestock? That is, considering how everything we need and what we do profits those genuine people?

Steagal re-enacted.

The Financial Sector of our economy makes nothing anymore. It's just wagering on the demise of corporations, cities, states, countries, and whatever else they can find to bet on. It's lunacy, IMHO.

And no Trader or Hedge Fund Manager is worth BILLIONS of dollars in salary/bonus. NO ONE is worth that. Unless they brought the world Peace and solved World Hunger.

From a purely sociopathic personal (think "Corporate" especially now that Corporations are persons) standpoint anyway.

Community considerations, laws, actively valuing and factoring in others and the future are what bring the "inefficiencies".

Climate Bill Is a Misnomer: It’s a Nuclear Energy-Promoting, Oil Drilling-Championing, Coal Mining-Boosting Gift to Polluters

Statement of Tyson Slocum, Director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program

WASHINGTON - May 12 - After half a year of delay, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) are set to release their nuclear energy/cap-and-trade bill today. Until we see legislative text, we can comment only on the broad outline made available yesterday and an additional summary being circulated among legislative staff.

It's not accurate to call this a climate bill. This is nuclear energy-promoting, oil drilling-championing, coal mining-boosting legislation with a weak carbon-pricing mechanism thrown in. What's worse, it guts the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) current authority to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

Here's our take on what we know is in the new bill:

Nuclear Power Incentives

At its core, this legislation is all about promoting nuclear power and handing taxpayers the bill. Consider: - Sections 1101 and 1105 would prioritize the needs of nuclear power corporations over the rights of citizens to have full, public hearings about the risks and dangers of locating nuclear power plants in their communities. - Section 1102 increases loan guarantees primarily for nuclear power to a jaw-dropping $54 billion. These loans are a terrible deal for the taxpayer, especially considering the high risk of default that even the government acknowledges. - Section 1103 provides $6 billion in taxpayer-subsidized risk insurance for 12 new nuclear reactors. - Section 1121 allows nuclear power plant owners to write off their depreciation much faster. Section 1121 provides a 10 percent investment tax credit for new reactors. - Section 1123 extends the Advanced Energy Project credit to nuclear reactors. - Section 1124-6 allows municipal power agencies to derive certain tax, bond and grant benefits from investing in nuclear power.

Oil

Apparently oblivious to the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the legislation expands offshore drilling. In fact, all new offshore drilling, leasing and permitting should be halted.

Section 1202 allows states to keep 37.5 percent of oil and gas royalty money. That's like saying because more rich people live in California and New York compared to Mississippi and New Mexico, those higher-income states should be able to keep more federal dollars raised from income taxes. Royalty revenue sharing is patently unfair - especially because the disaster in Gulf shows that an oil spill does not respect state boundaries.

Coal

Section 1412 establishes a carbon tax paid by ratepayers and collected by utilities to fund carbon capture and storage (CCS) - with no money allocated to rooftop solar or energy efficiency investments. Section 1431 will provide valuable emissions allowances for free to coal utilities pursuing CCS - an untested, risky strategy that benefits the coal industry and is gobbling up a lion's share of subsidies that otherwise could go to renewable energy development.

Merchant coal power plants (whose rates are not regulated) will get roughly 5 percent of the free allowances, which will provide opportunities for them to gouge consumers.

And while the nuclear and coal industries will receive a lot of taxpayer money and loan guarantees, Section 1604 states that "voluntary" renewable energy markets are "efficient and effective programs" and states that "the policy of the United States is to continue to support the growth of these markets." This is backward: Renewable energy should be getting the guarantees, rather than the coal and nuclear industries.

Offsets

The legislation allows entities to "reduce" their domestic greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing offsets from projects located in the U.S. and around the world. The recent offset crisis in Europe, where the offset market collapsed due to fraud, underscores the lack of accountability and transparency with offsets.

Consumer Protections Rather than follow President Barack Obama's cap-and-dividend plan, which would have required polluters to pay and would have distributed 80 percent of the money directly to families through the Making Work Pay tax credit, or the Cantwell-Collins CLEAR Act, which calls for distributing monthly checks to households, the Kerry-Lieberman approach relies on distributing valuable free allowances to utilities from 2013-2029, then requiring that utilities use the money "exclusively for the benefit of the ratepayers." But Congress won't be defining "benefit"; rather, 50 different state utility commissions will. Some will do a great job, but most will allow utilities to structure expensive energy efficiency programs that benefit shareholders more than ratepayers.

Wall Street

It appears that Wall Street may not have gotten everything it wanted - yet. The legislation appears to incorporate elements of S.1399, sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), which creates an Office of Carbon Market Oversight at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), giving the agency authority to regulate spot and futures emission markets. It requires all entities seeking to trade emissions derivatives to register and be approved by the CFTC, and all transactions must be cleared through a CFTC-regulated Carbon Clearing Organization. This is a good start to ensure that Wall Street plays no role in gambling on climate policy.

Danger remains, however, in creating carbon trading markets open to non-energy producers. Strong regulations in place today may be easily subverted tomorrow, leaving Wall Street positioned to control our climate future.

Conclusion

The Kerry-Lieberman bill represents a missed opportunity. By meeting behind closed doors, the lawmakers empowered corporate polluters to play an oversized role in influencing the legislation to the detriment of the climate and consumers. President Obama had it right when he successfully campaigned on a theme of making polluters pay and delivering benefits directly to households.

We need a bill that does not incentivize failed and dangerous technologies like nuclear power and does not enrich utilities at the expense of consumers."

"that does not incentivize failed and dangerous technologies like nuclear power and does not enrich utilities at the expense of consumers."

However we are getting the Same Ol' Same Ol". Average citizens will be penalized for switching on our heat or AC, while those at British Petroleum who leave off the 500 million dollar technology that prevents destruction of the entire Gulf of Mexico with massive oil slicks will still be getting their bonuses.

they want it so they can spin more bubbles. period.

There are 10s of millions of people in America that depend on pension funds - does that make them part of the evil investor class? What about all those with 401ks or IRA? Evil too?

Take Jeb Bush. Please.

About You and ENRON

so that their clients (retirees for example) can benefit, are they still evil?

...and ENRON's got who-knows how many hidden relationships that harm the investors while profitting the manager and the manager's family. Sure, that's evil -- it's called stealing, or "fraud" for the financial and legal sets. What do you think?

certainly not the entire "investor class".

more rents for the rentier class, more cash to gamble with for the gamblers.

That is, for those who aren't already a part of it.

they invented the 401K, to create and sustain this delusion.

I was writing that response. To see how many here were aware of that. Glad to see some are (you).

gotta rake off their rents on everything & put the whole world into play.

Wall Street creates no wealth.

Ruling the world takes a lot of money!

to help put food on the table. Nothing "fraud & shake-down" about it. Just money in my pocket.

Or so they think...

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64C2UO20100513

"Manufacturers don't always understand Wall Street's game, but after still-unexplained events nearly wiped out a trillion dollars in market value, they say it's high time for more regulation of financial services. The U.S. economy has become far too dependent on financial wizardry, a shakier foundation than the nuts and bolts of building excavators and jet engines, executives said this week at the Reuters Manufacturing and Transportation Summit in Chicago.

ENGINEERS VS. MBAS

While most major U.S. industrials are dependent on Wall Street as the surest conduit to the billions of dollars in investment they need to finance factories, executives voiced little faith in the Wall Street minds that created the obscure financial instruments that fueled the housing bubble and subsequent brutal economic downturn. Engineering and manufacturing skill has become undervalued in a nation captivated by the promise of easy riches that investment banking until recently promised, he said.

"I know what it takes to run a successful, complex company that makes something that people buy versus some other companies that are doing trading," Ustian said. "I don't know what the skill level of that is, obviously there's some technical skill, but I'll match them up to any of our engineers any day."

Even manufacturers that operate their own finance businesses -- like Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N) -- think some reform is needed. "There's a huge consensus in the country and even in the business community that we need financial regulatory reform. It was certainly inadequate in the last very difficult period we've gone through," CEO Jim Owens said. "I think we need serious regulatory reform."

It's only fair and that's how they can afford their Bimmers and vacation home in the Hamptons.

They dont take 40% they make 40% of all corporate profits. Huge difference.

nt

Namely US serving THEM! Rich people need more than you or I, it is a fact just look at their yacht's 24k gold toilet seat and $100 bills as toilet paper.