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aesir
02-27-2009, 11:43 PM
So as you know Wall Streeters are some of the most highly paid people in the world. In fact, they are THE most highly paid people in the world. At one point profits from Wall Street (read as: Lower Manhattan) equaled nearly 40% of all profit produced in the United States (which includes all the mom and pop stores,Walmarts, Microsofts etc.)
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NEW YORK, May 22 (Reuters) - On Wall Street, the rich may get still richer.

Investment bankers and many traders may see bonuses rise 15 percent from elevated 2006 levels, as profitability grows from international operations, proprietary trading and derivatives, according to a study released on Tuesday by Johnson Associates Inc., a prominent compensation consultant in New York.

Incentive pay on Wall Street for workers in the private equity sphere may rise 20 percent or more, the study said, as low borrowing costs fuel record buyout activity.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS.N) in April closed a $20 billion fund, while Blackstone Group , which is preparing to go public, said it has raised $19.6 billion for its latest fund.

Not all financial services workers will benefit equally. Retail banking employees may see incentive pay unchanged to up just 5 percent, the study said, as rising defaults and the U.S. housing slowdown crimp profit.

Incentives can comprise the bulk of compensation for top investment bankers and traders. Their overall pay regularly reaches seven-figure, and occasionally eight-figure, levels.

Bonuses for securities industry employees were projected last year to have risen 17 percent to a record $23.9 billion, according to a December estimate by former New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi.

Top Executives at Bruised Firms Among Wall Street's Highest Paid


By Cecilia Kang and Annys Shin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 24, 2008; Page D03


Some of the biggest financial firms that could benefit from the government's rescue plan also handed out some of Wall Street's biggest paychecks to their top executives.

Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, for instance, took home nearly $54 million in salary, perks, bonuses and other stock awards in 2007. J.P. Morgan Chase chief executive James Dimon collected $30 million in cash, stock and options. And former Wachovia chief executive G. Kennedy Thompson received total compensation of about $15.6 million.

For Steven Cohen, 35,000 Square Feet Isn’t Enough
November 14, 2008, 1:06 pm

Steven A. Cohen’s 35,000-square-foot home in Greenwich, Conn., is already big enough to cause a billionaire to do a double-take. But now, it appears that Mr. Cohen, who runs the giant and secretive hedge-fund firm SAC Capital, wants to make it even more enormous.

The final agenda for Thursday night’s meeting of the Greenwich Planning and Zoning Commission, available on the commission’s Web site, states that Mr. Cohen (pictured above, at left, with art collector Larry Gagosian) and his wife, Alexandra, are applying for a special permit to add another 1,145 square feet, give or take a few square inches, to their house on Crown Lane.

Here’s the agenda item in full:

Stephen A. and Alexandra M. Cohen; application PSP #3722 and SP #3723 for a preliminary site plan and special permit to add 1,144.89 sq. ft. to an existing 35,084.89 sq. ft. residence on site, in excess of 150,000 cubic feet in volume on a 13.911 acre property located at 30 Crown Lane in the RA-4 zone.

The meeting was scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday; it was not clear on Friday how the presentation went or when the planning board might make a decision. The planning board told DealBook that no one was immediately available to answer questions.

A spokesman for Mr. Cohen declined to comment.

Two years ago, another hedge fund manager’s plan to build a nearly 39,000-square-foot house caused a big controversy in Greenwich. More recently, the town rejected a Russian millionaire’s proposal to build a 27,000-square-foot house with 26 toilets and room to park 12 cars.

The Cohens paid more than $14 million for the house on 14 acres in 1998 and soon started major renovations and expansions, The New York Times reported in 1999. “There’s no question,” The Times’ Matthew Purdy wrote, “that the Cohens are planning a Xanadu on Crown Lane.”

The Cohens’ abundant approach to architecture hasn’t always pleased the rest of the town. In 1999, one resident, Susan Hut, had this to say to the town’s planning board about the house they proposed to build: “I feel that it’s not a home. It’s a showplace. It could be in the Bronx Botanical Garden.”

Describing Mr. Cohen’s estate in an article in Vanity Fair in July 2006, Nina Munk said it “resembles Buckingham Palace, or Windsor Castle. Even people unfazed by luxury are startled by the excess. One billionaire, whose name I’ve promised not to reveal here, said his jaw dropped the first time he visited.” Its amenities include a basketball court, an indoor pool and a Zamboni machine that smooths out a 6,734-square-foot ice rink.

Google Maps has an overhead view of the Cohens’ T-shaped estate, complete with geometric gardens at the bottom end. For a view from the ground, see the photo below.

http://youtubehillary.com/Billionaire/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/steven-cohens-house.jpg

http://www.llamamoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/strippers-dollar-bills-g-string.jpg


[B]VS.


Recession to Fuel More Family Murder, Suicide

Editorial Director
LiveScience.com robert Roy Britt
editorial Director
livescience.com – Mon Feb 2, 12:20 pm ETThe dramatic murder-suicides last month involving a family in Ohio and another in California might be the tip of a deadly domestic-violence iceberg, a sociologist says.


The topic, of course, is highly complex. In a nutshell, however, several studies have found that suicides as well as domestic violence spike for the unemployed. While family murder-suicides are relatively uncommon, such events can be tied to poor economic situations such as the current recession, said Sampson Blair, a sociologist at University of Buffalo.


"I expect an increase in such incidents over the next few years because economic strain on families provokes depression and desperation," Blair said.


Blair is not alone in anticipating a rise in suicide and deadly domestic violence.


Suicide risk


Blair cited a 2003 study in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, which found that "being unemployed was associated with a twofold to threefold increased relative risk of death by suicide, compared with being employed." The study's researchers noted, however, that about half the association they found "might be attributable to confounding by mental illness."


A 1998 study in the British Medical Journal found "the link between suicide and unemployment is more powerful that other socio-economic measures."


And as we all know, the current economic downturn is unlike anything seen in decades, with pressures on some people coming from all angles at once.


"From the individual's point of view, the loss of a job is certainly bad, but it can become much, much worse when it coincides with a loss of savings and investments, the loss of the family home (through foreclosure, for instance), and dismal prospects for finding another job soon," Blair said.


In the California case last month, Ervin Lupoe killed his wife and five children. It was the fifth mass death of a family by murder or suicide in a year just in Southern California. Lupoe left a suicide note describing the "horrendous ordeal" he and his wife went through after both being fired from their jobs.


(In the Ohio case, Mark Meeks had lost his job but recently gotten it back, before shooting his wife, his two small children, and himself. Police are not, however, leaning toward finance as being the main reason for the apparent

Vets battle economic recession

By KBJR News 1
KBJR-TV
updated 11:45 p.m. ET, Sun., Jan. 11, 2009
As the country continues to fight wars on two fronts, many veterans returning home are finding it extremely difficult to make ends meet.Joel Runck talked with a Duluth vet who is battling the current recession back home.

"It's been a struggle," said Jessica Daniels, Iraq War veteran.

For those who have served on the warfront there is the stress of battle.But for veterans returning to the homefront, there's the stress of an economic recession.Daniels came back from the war in 2004 to help take care of her family.She is married with 5 children and currently unemployed.

"It's been extremely hard for my husband and myself," Daniels said.

Durbin Keeney, regional director for the Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans (MACV) says his office helped 173 vets in 2007.But just last year, that number skyrocketed to more than 440.

"That's huge. So the economic downturn is just really facing these people, particularly those that are coming back," Keeney said


Mothers Crying
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Battle Wounded War Veteran Returning Home w/ you know who
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