Exodus
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| Fri, 03-20-2009 - 7:03pm |
Personally, I feel if the folks who plan to leave our country are the same guys and gals who got us into this mess ... good riddance!
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4ff2f77e-1584-11de-b9a9-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
Bonus claw back attempts anger bankers
Bankers on Wall Street and in Europe have struck back against moves by US lawmakers to slap punitive taxes on bonuses paid to high earners at bailed-out institutions.
Senior executives on both sides of the Atlantic on Friday warned of an exodus of talent from some of the biggest names in US finance, saying the “anti-American” measures smacked of “a McCarthy witch-hunt” that would send the country “back to the stone age”.
There were fears that the public backlash triggered by AIG’s payment of $165m (€122m) in bonuses, which followed the US insurer’s taxpayer-funded rescue, would have devastating consequences for the country’s largest banks.
“Finance is one of America’s great industries, and they’re destroying it,” said one banker at a firm that has accepted public money. “This happened out of haste and anger over AIG, but we’re not like AIG.”
The banker added: “This is like Russia 15 years ago. It’s like a McCarthy witch-hunt . . . This is the most profoundly anti-American thing I’ve ever seen.”
The outcry followed Thursday’s approval by the House of Representatives of a bill that would impose 90 per cent tax on bonuses paid to employees whose gross income exceeded $250,000.
Next week the Senate will also consider a hefty tax on Wall Street bonuses amid calls for an investigation into which politicians were responsible for allowing the AIG pay-outs. Some senators are calling for a committee hearing on a bill that would impose a 70 per cent tax at bailed-out institutions, half paid by employees and half by companies, arguing that a delay would help cool political anger.
One top executive at a Wall Street bank said that the tax measures posed as big a threat to the future of financial services as the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
“There are three big industries where the US has global leadership: financial services, media and technology. Introducing this 90 per cent tax is like taking one of those industries out the back and shooting it,” said the executive in London.
Big banks said their Washington-based lobbyists were working round the clock to warn lawmakers of the consequences. There was anger that even banks that made money would see performance-based incentive payments subject to the tax. “What good does it do to be demonising an industry that you need to revive to fix the economy?” said another executive at a bank that accepted bail-out funds.
In Frankfurt, Germany’s financial centre, one employee at a US investment bank said the new tax measures would “send back to the stone age”.
“Commodity traders are already moving to companies like BP where they can make as much money as they used to without being subject to these restrictions,” said another banker at a US firm.
A Credit Suisse executive predicted that European banks could face similar action. However, bankers at Deutsche said it could benefit from the proposed legislation by poaching its US rivals’ most talented employees.

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"It would do us good to get away from having a services-based economy and move to the production of next generation vehicles, power generation, medical tech, etc."
I agree. Like Japan we need to invest more in research & developement.