Blankfein Awarded $7M in Stock for ’11
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), the fifth- biggest U.S. bank by assets, gave Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein a $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011, a decrease from $12.6 million a year earlier.
Blankfein, 57, received 61,702 shares on Feb. 1, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The stock closed at $113.45 in New York that day. Goldman Sachs raised Blankfein’s salary to $2 million last year from $600,000.
Goldman Sachs’s 2011 earnings dropped 47 percent to the lowest level since 2008 on a second consecutive annual decline in fixed-income trading revenue. The New York-based firm reduced compensation 21 percent and eliminated 2,400 jobs. The stock fell 46 percent in 2011, more than the 18 percent drop in the S&P 500 Financials Index.
Chief Financial Officer David Viniar, President Gary Cohn, and Vice Chairmen J. Michael Evans and John S. Weinberg each also received 61,702 restricted shares, according to separate filings issued yesterday. Base salaries for those four executives jumped last year to $1.85 million each from $600,000.
The filings don’t include how much any of the executives have been awarded in cash bonuses. Blankfein received a $5.4 million cash bonus for 2010, his first since getting about $27 million in cash bonuses for each of 2007 and 2006.
James A. Johnson, a former CEO of Fannie Mae and the longest serving member of the Goldman Sachs board, is chairman of the compensation committee. The company won approval from 73 percent of shareholders for its compensation plan at the last annual meeting in May, down from 96 percent a year earlier.
JPMorgan’s Dimon
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-03/goldman-s-blankfein-awarded-7m-in-stock-for-11.html
Health Care Payers Push Back Against Costs
By UWE E. REINHARDT
Uwe E. Reinhardt is an economics professor at Princeton. He has some financial interests in the health care field.
In a paper, “Divide et Impera: Protecting the Growth of Health Care Incomes (Costs),” published this month in the British journal Health Economics, I summarize themes touched on here and there in several earlier posts on this blog.
TODAY’S ECONOMIST
Perspectives from expert contributors.
My argument in the paper is that what is often called overuse of health care by what are often described as excessively insured Americans — especially their use of high-cost, high-tech procedures — is at best a partial explanation for the high cost of American health care.
Yet cost-containment initiatives like high deductibles and co-insurance have taken use of health care as their chief target. These efforts will be only partly successful in controlling national health spending.
Equally important contributors to our high health spending, and probably more so, have been two other factors.
The first is the much higher administrative overhead costs loaded onto the American health system. David Cutler and Dan Ly, both of Harvard University, illuminate this proposition in their recent paper, “The (Paper) Work of Medicine: Understanding International Medical Costs,” in which they compare health spending in Canada and the United States.
28 comments:
"I do not know what it is but super rich Aussies are really ugly."
Well, Gina could always get a job stopping runaway trains - just show her self, and the train would stop dead.
da-da-boom
Bad joke, I know, but when I read her admiring comments about China, I would say her inside is as ugly as her exterior.
So it is a bad day for Australians when oligarchic corporatist trash like her gain control of the media, as if you didn't have enough brain dead right wing Murdoch crap being spouted.
What they call 'reversion to the mean' or 'what goes up must come down':
http://pragcap.com/the-deleveraging-cycle-is-far-from-over
"THE DELEVERAGING CYCLE IS FAR FROM OVER…"
"“A 30-50 year virtuous cycle of credit expansion which has produced outsize paranormal returns for financial assets—-bonds, stocks, real estate and commodities alike—-is now deleveraging because of excessive risk and the price of money at the zero-bound. We are witnessing the death of abundance and the borning of austerity, for what may be a long, long time.”
This quote from Bill Gross’s February comment for Pimco neatly summarizes in one sentence the main theme we have been emphasizing in our own comments for many years. Periods followed by credit crises are almost always followed by many years of below average growth, anemic expansions and frequent recessions. The most recent example is the experience of Japan since 1989. It is now happening in the U.S. and much of the world, and will not end anytime soon.
In the U.S., total domestic debt is now 341% of GDP, compared to about 150% in 1980. Gross federal government debt is about 100% of GDP, up from 32% in 1980. Household debt is 87% of GDP, compared to 49% in 1980. The period of abundance ended with the severe credit crisis of 2008 that was followed by the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Similarly, the recovery has been the weakest since the 1930s. Real GDP, over the last four quarters, has grown at the meager rate of 1.6%. Although the recently reported fourth quarter GDP growth of 2.8% was the best of 2011, the underlying data was extremely weak. The growth was driven largely by inventory accumulation, while final sales were up only 0.8%...
Looking ahead, consumer spending is likely to remain weak as households seek to deleverage and increase their savings. December real retail sales were down 0.1% as consumers raised their savings rate from 3.5% to 4%. The savings rate generally averaged between 8% and 9% from the 1950s to the 1980s. Declining household wealth, mostly a result of dropping home prices, is another factor inhibiting spending. While initial unemployment claims have dropped, new hiring is still in the doldrums, and wages increases are minimal."
"followed by the worst recession since the Great Depression."
THey can't bring themselves to say the word, as it might scare the Sheeple.
But the current 'Great Financial Crisis' we are in now is just another Depression, and it will get worse before it gets better.
We just don't call it a Crash, Panic or Depression these days. The MSM will always try to minimize the words they use, but they are irrelevant propaganda organs, not real news reporters.
Queen: I wrote a comment on the 'health care' article then deleted it after church as the sermon was on KEEP PEDALING and being more 'positive'!!
So, on that note...have you picked your team yet for the SuperBowl? We will begin the Bowl together but after eating I'll probably consign hubby to his 'room' to watch and I'll put in a dvd.
On another note/comment, something I read (can't remember where) on the Apple iPad selling books/text books really resonated. IF they sell textbook PER student, wouldn't it actually be MORE expensive? A 'real' book holds up for...5/6 years or more?
In fact, the interventions of criminal Central Banksters to save their fellow private criminal financial terrorist Banksters, have only made things worse, much worse.
Their tendency to always Failout and never accept the consequences of their own bad decisions only prolongs the agony for many years.
We should have, if the Banksters had been forced to mark-to-market instead of mark-to-unicorn, cleared much of the bad debt by now, and be on the road to an actual genuine recovery.
Instead, corrupt criminal politicians bailed out their fellow criminals with taxpayers money at the direction of criminal Banksters - and the real recovery remains somewhere in the disant future, after their efforts finally fail, as they always do.
Essentially, the Banksters have bet everything on the theory that "This Time It IS Different!", while history says it is in fact, NOT.
Cl - you are indeed correct.
THe current attempt to "digitze the classroom" is just corporatist oligarchic scum in action, doing what is good for them, not the education system or the future of the country.
Just another symptom of the underlying systemic corruption that is our "economy" these days.
And the moral vacuum that is our "culture".
I won't be watching the SuperBowl, as I don't get any TV channels anymore.
I can watch snow on every channel, as Canada went digital TV last Sept, and I did not.
Just haven't bothered to get a digital-to-analog converter and HDTV antenna. I have an antenna actually, but my old TV has no digital tuner.
One of these days I will buy a big new TV (looking at 60" plasmas) but with my way rural location I doubt I will get more than 2 or 3 channels anyway, which is all I could pull in with the old analog tuner. Which is OK, all I want to watch is the local news, mostly for the weather report, my viewing is all movies anyway, and with my internet data limit, no NetFlix or much YouTube is possible anyway.
And I have found that I don't even miss watching TV anyway, so paying for a satellite dish to get 300 hundred channels of crap I won't watch is not exactly a priority.
"Who really benefits from putting high-tech gadgets in classrooms?"
"How much genuine value is there in fancy educational electronics? Don't let companies or politicians fool you.
That should tell you that the nirvana sketched out by Duncan and Genachowski at last week's Digital Learning Day town hall was erected upon a sizable foundation of commercially processed claptrap. Not only did Genachowski in his prepared remarks give a special shout out to Apple and the iPad, but the event's roster of co-sponsors included Google, Comcast, AT&T, Intel and other companies hoping to see their investments in Internet or educational technologies pay off.
How much genuine value is there in fancy educational electronics? Listen to what the experts say.
"The media you use make no difference at all to learning," says Richard E. Clark, director of the Center for Cognitive Technology at USC. "Not one dang bit. And the evidence has been around for more than 50 years."
Almost every generation has been subjected in its formative years to some "groundbreaking" pedagogical technology. In the '60s and '70s, "instructional TV was going to revolutionize everything," recalls Thomas C. Reeves, an instructional technology expert at the University of Georgia. "But the notion that a good teacher would be just as effective on videotape is not the case."
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120205,0,639053.column
Linky for above quote, Blogger ate the earlier comment.
"Something sounded familiar last week when I heard U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski make a huge pitch for infusing digital technology into America's classrooms.
Every schoolchild should have a laptop, they said. Because in the near future, textbooks will be a thing of the past.
Where had I heard that before? So I did a bit of research, and found it. The quote I recalled was, "Books will soon be obsolete in the schools.... Our school system will be completely changed in 10 years."
The revolutionary technology being heralded in that statement wasn't the Internet or the laptop, but the motion picture. The year was 1913, and the speaker, Thomas Edison, was referring to the prospect of replacing book learning with instruction via the moving image.
He was talking through his hat then, every bit as much as Duncan and Genachowski are talking through theirs now.
Here's another similarity: The push for advanced technology in the schoolroom then and now was driven by commercial, not pedagogical, considerations. As an inventor of motion picture technology, Edison stood to profit from its widespread application. And the leading promoter of the replacement of paper textbooks by e-books and electronic devices today is Apple.."
CL I read an article and Apple is not going to make it more affordable. As GAW said just another way the sheer the sheeple as Apple business practices are horrible IMHO. You know what not IMHO. Apple sucks with their proprietary practices and use of Chinese slave labor and I stand by what I have said in the past, I will not buy anything from them ever. I don't mind that others do, but it is not going to be me.
I know some of you watch The Shark Tank and it never ceases to amaze me how Kevin (Mr Wonderful) always asks "why don't you make it in China?" The guest says because we need jobs here and I stand on those principles. The sharks couldn't care less as all they want is the money. This is the culture of venture capitalists. BTW I get a kick out of Mark Rubin. He has more money that all four of the other sharks and will routinely offer a better deal to the inventor of the idea.
I have watched it, it is a weird mixture of good and bad. The bad being the sharks, really, who are a part of what is wrong with modern 'capitalism'. There is nothing wrong with money
When the solution to every cost problem is 'Make it in China!' your country is doomed.
Apple is not even the worst offender in China, as Shaza said, and there is a story today about "thousands line up for FoxConn jobs in China despite bad publicity". When you need a job, you need a job - and the Chinese have no shortage of poor unemployed.
Yet companies are now starting to move out of China on cost pressure, to cheaper climes like Vietnam and Indonesia - countries with lots of poor eager workers.
India should see the most growth, with the largest population base, but their problems with poverty and infrastructure are immense and they look poorly managed.
Africa will be the final frontier, then they will have to get their cheap goods made in orbital factories or on lunar industrial parks or on busienss friendly Mars.
It should be astandard policy on Shark Tank that they will make their best effort to create all the jobs America. Same for similar shows in Canada, or the UK or wherever.
Not everything is about money, like the important things in life.
Which is why I don't like O'leary, as he's such a greedy prick. He sells expensive 'marketing DVD sets', now there is a guy who really adds value. Or not.
GAW I will put up a comment up on the scores when they happen so you can be informed. NOT!
CL I am a big Tom Brady fan and I am anti-all NY teams. So I will be giving up 3 points and taking the New England Patriots. However, the game is being playing in Indianapolis inside a dome.
I'd go with the Patriots too myself. Heard estensive discussion this week at work.
Always a good time, the SuperBowl party. One guy at work said he invited 60 people over for a big party.
Traditional: chili and lots of cold beer.
Mark Burnett a Brit is the producer of the show and I know would never do anything unless it is for money. He has produced such great shows as Survivor, Celebrity Apprentice, The Voice and Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? I saw that show and was amazed at how dumb adults are. The really are dumber that a Fifth Grader. Survivor is one of Yvonne's favorites and it is the most vile backstabbing piece of garbage ever to be on TV.
I say we take the CEOs of the TBTF banks and put them on an island and call it "The Last Bankster Standing."
No rules, no voting you just have to survive. Real backstabbing is encouraged. One criminal bankster every week bites the dust. Then we could create teams in the future like Dems vs Reps or Congress vs the Banksters. Now that is a show I would watch.
"That leads us to the next bit of data from the BLS, brought to my attention by Philippa Dunne of The Liscio Report (www.theliscioreport.com). It needs no set-up:
“And in another set of forecasts, on Wednesday, the BLS released its occupational projections through 2020. They make very glum reading. The five job titles with the biggest projected increases in numerical terms: registered nurses, retail salespersons, home health aides, personal care aides, and office clerks. Of those, the first requires no more than an associate’s degree; the last, a high-school diploma; and the middle three, less than high school. Of the top 20 occupations, just five require an associate’s degree or more. All together, 30% of the projected job openings over the decade will require less than a high-school diploma, and 40%, only a high school diploma. Less than 20% will require a bachelor’s or more. Almost three-quarters will require no more than brief on-the-job training, and 85% will require no previous relevant job experience.
“All those politicians and pundits who love to talk about the need to educate the citizenry—along with the proponents of the job-skill mismatch theory of persistent unemployment—should check in with these projections. They paint a picture of a low-wage, low-skill labor force. And though the U.S. is still a destination for world-class scientists and the producer of great innovations, it’s hard to imagine how that can be sustained on the base of such an uneducated, unskilled labor force. We can only hope for some upside surprises.”"
above quote:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/02/who-took-my-easy-button/
John Mauldin again. Why is it that Blogs always have the facts, while the story in the MSM reads wholly the opposite.
http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/02/03/never-follow-your-dreams-mark-cuban-answers-your-questions/
Good set of quotes there, wide ranging interview. Very smrt guy.
"Never follow your dreams. Follow your effort. It’s not about what you can dream of. That’s easy. It’s about whether or not it’s important enough to you to do the work to be ready to be successful in that business."
Thanks GAW for the links. I will bet you would get an antenna for your TV if we could have "Bankster Gladiator" programming.
You remember what George Carlin said about education. Ain't gonna happen, don't look for it, because that is not what the owners want. The owners of this country don't want a populace of educated critical minded thinkers. They want people who are just smart enough to pull the levers and accept jobs with low pay, no benefits and no pensions. They also want our Social Security money and they are going to get it and give it to there rich friends. It no secret that they want more for them and less for everyone else.
What a great story by John Maudlin. I may have missed it had you not posted the link. We really are in for some hard choices and hard time. We are heading for the iceberg full steam ahead. Same kind of eye opener I have had this past 18 months. My world has been turned upside down. I think a means test will be inevitable for Medicare and Social Security. Our military must be downsized and that is just a lot more unemployed.
I have to say this. It's not the BANKERS. It is the GRAFT, CORRUPTION, POWER, MONEY-HUNGRY, ANTI-FREEDOM acts we are fighting. The bankers are simply the current 'face'.
I have been thinking of this a lot lately. I'm not sure I could serve on a jury (now I'll probably get called and end up in contempt) but how can I sit in judgement on a fellow citizen when I see Corzine running around collecting $500,000 for Obama's reelection? Or the massive pharmacies get away with not paying out when they have 'known' problems with their drugs, etc.
Lately, I'm worried that the anger has become far too easily directed and can/will be repurposed away from the true issues. I have often said that I can be friends with the most far left person in the world IF they believe and live their belief. And that is true for all faiths, all colors, and most (not all) politics. (I DON'T think I could have been friends with Hitler, Stalin, or Mao, or Pol Pot...at least, I hope not!)
Give me someone who lives what they believe and you have a person of principle. May not be MY principles, but that's okay. Most times, however, you get 'puppet' speak. A person desiring power says whatever to attain and keep it while selling out behind the scenes to live and support whatever they are pretending to avoid. For example, if a 'good' Christian is supporting adultery, a 'good' Jew eating cheeseburgers, a 'good' Muslim drinking alcohol, etc. then how good are they to what they are supposedly proclaiming?
cont.-That's probably why I have a healthy cynicism on everything from tv evangelists to politicians to finances. It's always a 'follow the money' with me. Don't speak CHARITY, show me your tax form and show me where you gave. And don't just give MONEY. Show me your time.
So, while I am no friend of the bankers, I find it more and more disheartening to see the breakdown of ethics that are contributing to the current divide in our society. We should teach people to WANT to do good. By reneging on our duties we are raising a confused generation who believes in nothing. People dislike the 'black and white' of views but when everything is gray, how do you know where to stand? This is a BIG deal with me being the mother of a daughter and 2 granddaughters. We are raising generations of girls with no self-worth who see their bodies as merchandise with no value (thanks, in part to tv) so they can 'act' like men. Phooey. And it's the same with boys. They sit home with video war games and think that makes a man? Maybe we should make them all go to a VA hospital. I like the old idea where the 'king' had to do the fighting. I'll bet we'd have far less wars if we had to stand CONGRESS vs. the head groups of another country in a fight!
Still there are solutions. Want to get back at bankers? Invest your wealth in people. Collect for a food pantry. Make a meal for a senior. Call a shut in. Offer to give some time off to a caregiver. Make it a PERSON-TO-PERSON investment. Give first of yourself. THAT is what our enemies cannot fight. That is how we triumph. Not through drugs, or iPads, or gold.
I like the quote from mark cuban. Most of all we must teach them to READ all points of view so they can learn to respect others yet justify their own viewpoints.This business of telling kids to 'follow their dreams' is both unrealistic and false. You have to teach kids to give their BEST, to DO their BEST, and to GIVe their Best in whatever they do because it is expected of them..not so everyone gets a 'trophy'. We are not all promised our 'dreams'. What we are promised (in a free society) is an allotted time to make a difference to those around us.
IMO THAT is what is missing in lately. If we LOSE this idea. If we continue to see different camps forcing us to choose sides and egging on conflict to disband our respect for one another, for law, for decency...then I'm afraid the results will be far too horrible to ponder.
I decided to go with what is called the money line for the Stuperbowl. This means I don't give any points away and the game is straight up. However I have to bet 13.50 to win 10.00 so I put 27.00 on NE to win 20.00. I may put more on before the game starts.
The best part of the Superbowl is the commercials.
My the 'force' be with you, Queen.
I still LOVE that VW commercial from last year. Understand that this year it is to feature dogs in a Star Wars theme.
"Bankster Gladiator" what about Pro Celebrity boxing instead, say with Tyson getting in the ring with Jamie Dimon?
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