Gabriel Sherman's cover-story on Wall Street regulations has been making the rounds:
Wall Street’s traders have found themselves on the wrong end of the market—a predicament that many of them have never seen before. Before the crash, when compensation slid, the banks risked seeing their top talent run for the doors to rival firms or hedge funds. Now, with a glut of hedge funds and an industrywide belt-tightening, bank chiefs are calling their star traders’ bluffs. "If you’re really unhappy, just leave," Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman bluntly told Bloomberg TV a few days after his bank announced its meager bonus numbers.
For New York’s bankers and traders, the new math suddenly reordered their assumptions about their place in a post-crash city. "After tax, that’s like, what, $75,000?" an investment banker at a rival firm said as he contemplated Morgan Stanley’s decision [to cap bonuses at $125,000]. He ran the numbers, modeling the implications. "I’m not married and I take the subway and I watch what I spend very carefully. But my girlfriend likes to eat good food. It all adds up really quick. A taxi here, another taxi there. I just bought an apartment, so now I have a big old mortgage bill."
CNBC may have to revise its dating guide. Matt Taibbi is flabbergasted that Sherman's piece gives short shrift to the massive problems in Europe:
Wall Street people complain a lot, but in the last six months, the grave impact of Dodd-Frank on bonuses hasn’t even been within ten miles of the things these people are really panicked about. The comments I’ve heard have been more like, "My asshole has been puckered completely shut for four months in a row over this Europe business," or, "If the ECB doesn’t come up with a Greek bailout package, I’m going to have to sell my children for dog food."
Chris Lehmann manages to be even less kind. Meanwhile, Suzy Khimm checks in on what's in store for Dodd-Frank.
The Dish 