'Something will 'ave to be done, and that very soon,' Grinder was saying. 'We can't go on much longer as we're doing at present. For my part, I think the best thing to do is to chuck up the sponge at once; the company is practically bankrupt now, and the longer we waits the worser it will be.' [...]
'Sell out!' replied Grinder with a contemptuous laugh in which the others joined. 'Who's going to buy the shares of a concern that's practically bankrupt and never paid a dividend?'
'Who's to buy?' repeated Sweater, replying to Grinder. 'The municipality of course! The ratepayers. Why shouldn't Mugsborough go in for Socialism as well as other towns?' [...]
'Afterwards,' resumed Sweater, 'I'll arrange for a good report of the meeting to appear in the Weekly Ananias. I'll instruct the Editor to write it himself, and I'll tell him just what to say. I'll also get him to write a leading article about it, saying that electricity is sure to supersede gas for lighting purposes in the very near future. Then the article will go on to refer to the huge profits made by the Gas Coy and to say how much better it would have been if the town had bought the gasworks years ago, so that those profits might have been used to reduce the rates, the same as has been done in other towns. Finally, the article will declare that it's a great pity that the Electric Light Supply should be in the hands of a private company, and to suggest that an effort be made to acquire it for the town. [...]
'Come to think of it,' observed Rushton arrogantly, 'why should we trouble ourselves about the opinion of the ratepayers at all? Why should we trouble to fake the books, or declare a dividend or 'ave the harticles in the papers or anything else? We've got the game in our own 'ands; we've got a majority in the Council, and, as Mr Sweater ses, very few people even take the trouble to read the reports of the meetings.' [...]
'Well, 'ere's success to Socialism,' cried Grinder, raising his glass, and taking a big drink.
But yeah, the first Red Scare in the US was during the First World War. Look at how they treated Eugene Debs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs#Sedition_convic...
Freedom of speech... as long as you don't actually try it.
Its the intrinsic arrogance that the profits are somehow due to the business prowess of these charlatans, while any losses are due to "the market"
What’s the staff size of CS - could it be 10,000 top managers. Or 1,000 top managers but over ten years becomes ~5,000 if turnover averages at every 2nd year.
Despite investment bank bonuses being very high compared with other industries, 32mil is just too insane to believe!
Example: You have a credit trading desk and an equity trading desk. Your equity trading desk makes 1 billion, your credit desk loses 2 billion. Sure, you lose 1 billion in total, but you still pay the equity desk the bonus on the 1 billion profit.
Who maintains this blacklist, is there a way to preview it?
Take a big risk and make your company go bust? Maybe you lose a job.
Take a big risk and make 1B? You are getting a fat bonus check.
Constraining bonuses like this is only achievable via collective action.
Top performers in highly leveraged positions really do generate outsized returns. There are definitely people in certain positions who "take their margin with them" and so firms compete by offering that individual a higher percentage of the margin they generate and the nature of markets mean anyone who doesn't compete "loses".
You need a collective action mechanism (government) and the only solution we've ever seen in practice is a high marginal tax rate. Companies are less willing to pay exorbitant sums being taxed at 94% and individuals fight less for them.
In no year has Stripe ever made a profit.
For comparision in 2019 Stripe had 4,000 employees, Credit Suisse 50,000.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-06/stripe-de...
It feels like this is misrepresenting the situation quite a bit. This is not a tax bill on bonuses. This is a tax bill on equity, which is a part of the regular compensation package, and an awkward situation due to that equity being illiquid as Stripe has not gone public.
This doesn't mean that a bonus structure isn't appropriate. Bonus are supposed to be an incentive. Achieve bold goals -> get bonus.
If anything this is more important in growing companies than in stable, profitable companies, which have achieved a sustaining business model. Why pay a bonus to people just following the algorithm.
No judgement on Stripe's specifics.
Banks are different.
One of the greatest coups of lobbying was when the finance industry convinced politicians all over the world that banking ist just like any other industry and thus should not be regulated more than other industries.
On one hand, it's safer they only hold money for a day or two.
On the other hand, no FDIC insurance. If Stripe (or Visa or Mastercard) were to poof, what would actually happen to in-flight money? Seems like you could pretty easily lose a day or two where the client got charged, and it never got paid out.
However, the money may be stored in a money market account i.e short term bonds or even if it's a more normal savings account the bank itself depends on fractional lending and bonds.
I'm be very surprised if any major payment processor hasn't vetted the institutions that hold transaction funds. That said some payroll companies were hit by SVB's collapse but more so on not being able to accept checks than loosing already received funds.
Fbo accounts are technically the banks, the processor keeps the records of whose funds are whose within the account and the fdic limit applies to the beneficiary (the person the processor is holding the funds for).
Source: I worked for the treasury group at a payment processor.
Other than the word "raising" that statement is completely incorrect.
> $3.5 billion
Recent article mentioned this was north of 5B
> tax rate 22%
That's not accurate even for US and they have employees worldwide.
> In no year has Stripe ever made a profit
Source?
> (some of)
Almost all employees get stock based compensation at big tech companies
> bonuses
These are salaries or stock based comp, not bonuses
> comparision in 2019 Stripe had 4,000 employees
Source?
(Though that maximum is unlikely to be hit)
In the meantime, top managers extracted 32 billion in bonuses over the last 10 years.
Privatise profits, socialise losses.