Not Bad

Look at this. The results from 2012 are finally in. Goldman actually did pretty good. The trend is up, even for the slackers. Revenues for the year were $32B. Profits were $7B for the year. Yeah. That's B as in Billion. Still does not match the results from two years ago (2010). But upward from last year. The jury is still out for the really long term trend.

Not Winning

Goldman just lost $428MM is their last quarter. Ouch. These lackeys never lose money by quarters end. That's not the real kicker though. The stock price is actually up. We must be in Bizarro world. Either that or the market already planned for there to be a loss. Perhaps the loss was not as bad as expected. I doubt it though. Nobody expects Goldman to post losing numbers. Is this a new trend?

Fortune Hunters

Now I know why all the lackeys want to work for Goldman. The average salary at Goldman Sachs is over $430k a year. Holy mamma. I even want to get a job there now. Damn.

Things are not all rosy though. Goldman is actually laying off people now. Sure this might be the weak part of the herd. But they are also cutting salaries. That might not be too tragic. If you make $430k++ a year, you can afford to get a 10% haircut and stiff be rich.

Goldman pays massive salaries, even when compared to other big investment banks. This seems criminal. But I think it all depends. If you make your company $400M a year in profits, you probably deserve half a million in compensation. Hell. You might even deserve more. It all depends if you hit home runs all the time, or just show up to play the game.

Money to Blow

I saw an advertisement in a technical magazine for a programmer. The salary offered was between $225k and $400k. Whuuuut? The ad empasized that the job was a 40 hour a week 9 to 5 type job.

Perhaps this is a specialty position. They want experience with derrivative software. They also require a masters degree in computer science. However they are just looking for 3 years of derrivatices software experience.

Normal developers make a lot less than $225k in salaried positions. Senior developers make more like $125k. Do these guys have so much cash overflowing that even the developers get to share the booty? Sounds fishy to me.

Bonus Debacle

It is no secret that the banks received billions in bailout money last year. The Fed thought the country would fall apart if they did not act. Now some banks have paid off their bailout loans. The problem is that these banks are reporting record profits now. In addition, they are awarding record bonuses as well. The American people are mad.

Goldman Slacks executives are apologetic about the situation. They are sorry people lost money. However they argue that current employees are not liable for past mistakes. In fact, some employees already took compensation cuts last year.

Some banks skipped executive bonuses. But the trend is executive pay is on the rise. One compromise is to provide executive pay in the form of long term stock. That way they will make decisions which benefit the company for the long term.

I do not fault GS for awarding bonuses now. If we truly did not want such nonsense to happen, there should have been additional terms tied to the bailout loans. This was just not done. Now we cannot cry over the spilled milk. Pwned.

TARP Repayment

Old Goldman Slacks wants to pay back the TARP money they got from the government. Good for them. I saw some hesitancy on the United States government's part in accepting the repayment. WTF? Take the money and run.

However Goldman wants to also eliminate the warrants that the government has on them. Now this is something that may be worth something to the government and taxpayers in the future. Goldman got the loan when it was in trouble. Now they need to truly pay us back. When I say us, I mean the taxpayers of America.

There is no doubt that Goldman Slacks now wants to get the government off its back in terms of executive pay and bonuses. This is true greed at its finest. I say let them pay back the TARP. The company is looking stable. Over the last 6 months, their stock price has doubled in value.

Now It Begins

I heard it from the grapevine that Goldman Sachs was trying to get the Goldman Sachs 666 site shut down. Isn't that s hoot? The company does not like a site whose domain name infers a connection with the devil. To tell the truth, I tried to register a Blogger address with a similar name. The name was already taken. The bastards. It just redirected to the Goldman Sachs 666 web site.

Well I decided to form the Goldman Slacks blog then. I did not coin this term. I think I first read this description on a Yahoo stock message board. It was on a board that actually discussed some other company. Perhaps it was Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. That matters not. What does matter is that somebody else was unhappy enough about Goldman Sachs that they made another nickname for them which was derogatory.

If you are affiliated with the Goldman Sachs 666 site, or you are the guy who coined the terms Goldman Slacks, drop me a line. If you work for the real Goldman Sachs company, drop me a line. And if you just want to talk about Goldman, post a comment here for all to see.