Let the whining begin.
The ink on thousands of Wall Street bonus checks isn’t even dry, but already finely tuned ears across Manhattan can hear the rumbling. On drop-off lines at the city’s poshest private schools, Pilates-toned moms confess that they are holding back on signing $40,000 contracts for their children’s tuition next fall. A top-notch gemstone dealer reports sales are slowing dramatically, and there were fewer family-jet excursions from Teterboro over last week’s extended weekend.
Yes, after three years in which Wall Street operated in an alternate universe to the rest of America, the financial sector is finally getting a taste of the austerity the rest of the country has been feeling for at least 40 months now. So far, the reaction is as ugly as it is irrational.
“D-Day,” “A grim day,” “the day of dread” — these are just a few of the descriptions that were tossed around by the investment bankers, traders and financial engineers that occupy our city’s grandest office towers. The indignation and outcry was over a bonus season that many Masters of the Universe found, well, beneath them.
“It is a terrible time to work on Wall Street,” one trader groused. Just how terrible? Let’s look at the compensation numbers that reportedly brought at least one Goldman employee to tears last week.
Average pay per employee fell to $367,000 in 2011, a 14.6 percent decline from a year ago and the lowest since 2008. Yes, $367,000 on average — or seven times what the average American family earns.
Unfortunately, the economic crisis will probably not truly be over until the excesses in the financial sector are wrung out the same way as they have been in the housing market. That will mean layoffs on Wall Street and tough times for the New York economy in general.
Hopefully, those so generously compensated during Wall Street’s go-go days have saved enough to keep our restaurants full and real-estate market buoyant.
If not, one word of advice to disaffected bankers: If you have to downsize your lifestyle a bit, fly commercial, or stretch out your Botox appointments, don’t tell us about it. The well of sympathy has long run dry.