Well… it’s now “bonus season,” I understand, for high-level executives among the banks, investment banks, brokerage houses, and the like. At a time when even supposedly well-off working professionals aren’t doing all that well, early reports are that the financial institutions are set to pay near-record bonuses once again. Why?
Oh, I know the official reason. Profits are up, and therefore these executives are to be compensated for playing a part in obtaining those profits. But then again, the entire country played a part, last year and the year before, in rescuing the financial community from the results of its excessively reckless pursuit of profit at any cost.
At the same time, unemployment is hovering close to ten percent nationally, and it’s likely in excess of fifteen percent if you count in the people who aren’t included because they’ve been out of work so long they’ve given up looking. Those figures don’t really include people who are working part-time because they can’t get full-time jobs, and the unemployment rate for minorities is close to twice the overall rate. Even once-secure high-paying professions are feeling the pinch. Law firms are booting out partners and aren’t hiring. Thousands upon thousands of law school graduates have no jobs and student loans that can amount to $100,000 and more. The fees paid to primary care doctors – you know, the ones who actually see you – are essentially frozen, while insurance and other costs continue to rise. And unlike specialists, primary care physicians don’t rake in the big bucks. Middle management jobs are continuing to shrink, as are positions for teachers all across the country. And, as for us authors, paperback book sales are down, and ebook sales haven’t yet, if they ever do, made up the difference in royalties.
And the finance community is going to pay record bonuses?
For what? Are banking services improving? Not when banks are automating everything and trying to use as few real bodies as possible. Not when they’ve grown ever more adept at finding fees for everything and reducing the billing cycle. And now, my wife has discovered yet another indication of just how little the banks care about you and me.
The other day, she was trying to balance her account – and it wouldn’t balance. The reason it wouldn’t balance was because the bank deducted $253 from her account for a check she wrote for $153. Even the bank’s photocopied records showed that the check was for $153 – but they still deducted $253. When she finally got a real person on the line, after a ten minute hold because “we are experiencing unusually high call volume,” and explained the situation, it took five minutes more to verify that the bank had goofed, and then the customer service [this is service?] representative explained that it would take 3-5 business days to rectify the error in my wife’s account. Three to five days in this era of instant electronic banking? When they made the error in the first place? Oh… and when this isn’t your local bank but a large regional bank?
Would they have rescinded all the fees they would have collected if their error had caused her to overdraw her account? I have my doubts.
So… tell me again how all those finance types deserve record bonuses? They’re either totally out of touch with the rest of the United States… or they’re so contemptuous that they don’t care. Either way, they don’t deserve those bonuses.