Life Is Rough; Why 70 Million Is Not Enough For Salary

[EV_Ares]

Snips From Wall Street Journal:

Mark McGoldrick earned about $70 million in pay last year -- nearly $200,000 a day -- placing bets using Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s money. He was one of Goldman's highest-paid employees.

Turns out it wasn't enough.

Internally dubbed "Goldfinger" for running one of Goldman's most-profitable units, Mr. McGoldrick delivered a big chunk of the firm's 2006 profits, people familiar with the matter say. He co-founded and built the firm's secretive "special-situations group," Goldman's elite but opaque money-making machine that buys and sells eclectic assets including British power plants, Japanese golf courses and Thai auto loans.


But the 48-year-old Mr. McGoldrick decided he was working too hard, on a certain path to burnout.

"Years of constant travel around the world took a personal toll on Mark, even though the business was exciting," says Lance West, a former Goldman partner who worked for Mr. McGoldrick. "Finally it was about the money -- but it wasn't just about the money." Mr. McGoldrick and some of the partners in his unit griped that they weren't being rewarded as well as counterparts at hedge funds and private-equity firms. Though highly paid, his team was "under-compensated," Mr. McGoldrick complained to Goldman colleagues. He groused about being shut out of investments because of potential conflicts inside Goldman. Then he quit.

For now, Mr. McGoldrick is biding his time until his agreements with Goldman not to compete or solicit clients expire in the next few months. In the meantime, he's begun running again and lost nearly 30 pounds on his 6-foot-2-inch, 220-pound frame. He's vacationing with his family at their horse farm in Martha's Vineyard and taking his oldest child to visit colleges. Still he's watching for investment opportunities, and is expected to visit Goldman soon seeking a waiver from the prohibitions of getting back into the business. That's necessary because Goldman has the hammer of holding a portion of Mr. McGoldrick's past compensation in the form of restricted stock.

(((((No link; Pd Subscriprtion Only))))

[proud patriot]

1. I earn approx $12,000 a year caring for disabled children

perhaps this asshole would like to trade jobs and
salaries . I bet at the end He'll decide I'm the
one who is under paid .

[Solar_Power]

32. You do have a more meaningful life

Money is overrated

[Starbucks Anarchist]

2. Aww, poor widdle baby.

:puke:

[bluestateguy]

3. I don't know. At 70 million you might have to settle for a regular corporate jet, and not a 747.

Let's try to be more understanding, folks.

[Mutineer]

29. And do you have any idea how much a yacht costs these days?

Expenses people! These people have expenses! :eyes:

Not to mention having to pay alimony to multiple ex-trophy wives!

[aquart]

4. Greedy, worthless bastard.

[liberal N proud]

5. The thing about greed...

WIth greed, enough is never enough. Even if you had all of what ever it is you are greedy about, greed will cause you to want more.
Once you have been consumed with greed there is no stopping your desires.

[Ron Green]

10. Exactly. Greed is fear-based, in that the greedy person fears the reality of life

in its immediacy, cleaning and mending one's own space and spending time in simplicity and reflection. This guy doesn't love himself, or rather not his true self. He hasn't dismantled enough of his ego to know where love is.

[MADem]

6. Here's a link that worked for me...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118740076313301636.html?mod=rss_markets_main

I got to it via this link: http://fider.idg.pl/info.asp?j=0&za=46&id=15508635

It's a very long article, ya need to read the whole thing to get an appreciation for this guy's big picture...

[EV_Ares]

7. Thanks for that MADem. eom.

[Ikonoklast]

8. Based on the article, he has a point

His renumeration was nowhere near what his unit earned for Goldman. If he had run his own private equity firm, his salary would have been much, much more.

This guy worked very, very hard and made a ton of profit for Goldman.

I see no difference between this and a professional athlete making a fortune for the team owner. They both should be compensated accordingly.

[BlooInBloo]

9. DUers invariably side with the billionaire owners over the millionaire players....

... And generally are possessed of bitter feelings towards the rich, no matter how hard they work.

[Tesha]

33. Generally, we tend to look at the societal value versus pay....

Generally, we tend to look at the societal value versus pay
and neither the stock trader nor the professional athlete
are providing *ANY* value back to society for their extravagant
salaries.

By comparison, the child care provider who checked in above
is providing far more value to society for about *1/6000TH*
of the pay. In other words, for the money the Goldman-Sachs
asshole was being paid, we could hire the child care provide
5832 assistants!

Tesha

[BlooInBloo]

34. And the billionaire owner provide what? Besides soaking the taxpayers' money...

... for lavish stadiums for the rich?

:rofl:

No matter how bad the billionaire owners screw everybody, the mob still prefers them to the millionaire players. How odd.

[Tesha]

35. You seem to have a reading comprehension problem.

I made no defense of the billionaire owner; you're simply
making that up out of whole cloth.

But I didn't feel the need to list every billionaire in
the world in my post; by listing the businessman (the
point of this thread) and the hypothetical sports star,
I gave you credit for enough intelligence to understand
that I was speaking generally about all rich people who
do essentially nothing for their "living".

Apparently, I was wrong about your intelligence and
I'll try to avoid the mistake in the future.

Tesha

[MadHound]

11. Yeah, I can see your point.

But the thing is that whenever you start earning more in a year than most people earn in a lifetime, it is hard for people to be very sympathetic about one's wage issues. Frankly, if I earned seventy million in a year, I would invest ten million or so to live off the interest for the rest of my life and use the interest off of the other sixty million to do good works. Instead this guy is wanting to make ever more money, not satisfied with what he's got. Hard to be sympathetic.

As far as athletes go, at least they have the excuse that they're sacrificing their bodies, their health for their salary. What is this guy sacrificing? Time with his family? Well, if he stopped concentrating on making obscene amounts of money, he would have time for the best things in life. That is a luxury for many, since they get paid so little that they are working all of the time and hardly ever sees their families.

[EV_Ares]

12. There are a lot of people who work very very hard and they are

not compensated a fair wage for their work; teachers, social workers, policemen, etc. A lot of that is because guys like this one on Wall Street don't seem to like employees and always reward the CEO's and companies whenever they cut jobs.

What is the percentage difference now between most CEO's and their employees?

As for athletes & compensation, not a very good comparison, a totally different situation.

[Ikonoklast]

14. Why is there a difference?

First-round high-skill position players (Say, starting quarterback drafted from a Div. I conference) make more than third-rounders, because they make the owner more money, by winning. Hopefully.

The same reason Harvard MBA's make more money starting out than a business graduate from Unknown State U.
The Harvard MBA is a first-rounder; his skill and knowledge will make the owners (stockholders) more money.

But that is not to say that Unknown State U. grad may be a better businessman; then he should be rewarded. Or the third-rounder that turns out to be the most over-achieving player on the team.

The comparison is valid. Show me how there is a difference; both are paid to perform. If you exceed expectations, you get paid more. Under perform, and your salary declines.

The instance here was a person paid to find investment opportunities in distressed industries. He bought at a discount, and had nothing to do with day-to-day operations of those businesses. He may even had saved some companies buy injecting liquidity in the form of buying their debt, possibly saving jobs that may have been lost. He has nothing to do with executive compensation.

If I am smarter, and work harder for my bosses and make them a huge profit, I would want to be compensated accordingly; at least as much as others in my line of work.

[EV_Ares]

15. The main focus on this is you talk about this guy working so very very

hard & my post pointed out that example of firefighters, teachers, policemen, among others you might think about who contributes to society and educates our children and provides protection for us all.

There is a huge difference between this guy & his company and a professional sports team and athlete. That is pure entertainment and it has not the effect that this guy and his cronies along with the rest of Wall Street has on jobs and the economy. You can see that now with the market turmoil and the sub prime lenders.

Also, athletes pay is based on their time they are expected to be able to play which is much shorter than someone like this 70 million dollar guy who feels he is being shortchanged & you can go ahead and cry for this guy but he is part of the problem and reason the division in this country is getting to where it is at. Read Buffett, he has made comments on this sort of thing.

There is a difference between being rewarded a fair compensation and greed and overly compensated. Greed and overly compensated is what Wall Street is all about and creates problems for all of us unfortunately.

[Ikonoklast]

16. Investment bankers face the same shortened career

The amount of burnout is staggering, as the mental and physical demands take their toll.
There are few doing that job into their fifties. It is a young persons' game.


Let me ask you, if you made more money for your company than everyone else in the division, (assuming that your compensation was based on performance) wouldn't you want to be paid more?

I would.

That is the reason I went into business for myself, I was tired of making the owners rich and me getting the leftovers, or lame excuses instead of just compensation. And yes, it was a lot.

[EV_Ares]

17. You say "The amount of burnout is staggering, mental and physical demands

taking their toll" (Firefighters, policemen, teachers, social workers). That must be who you are talking about.

Nobody here has said anything about being rewarded fair compensation for your work. Everybody should be rewarded fairly. We are talking about overly compensated and greedy individuals such as this one.

[Ikonoklast]

19. We all make choices

If the career path that I choose leads me to make an enormous amount of money, isn't that the American way?

Does anyone force people into lower-paying jobs? Ignorant of the compensation the trade of your choice affords you?

Shame on you. Change careers. It can be done.

I don't see how this guy is 'greedy'. He only wants what he considers fair, and his employers (the really greedy ones) are getting him to work cheap. He made a fortune for Goldman-Sachs, and the mananging partners kept it.

I can't understand why DU'ers are against people making money.....oh, like John Edwards, or any of the Kennedys, or George Clooney, or....well, you get my drift.

[EV_Ares]

21. Shame on me for talking about fairness, LOL, man you are great. Go ahead cry for this guy

done with this. There is no way you can justify any of this. Take some time out from all your hard work and money you say you have and read the papers and see all the books in Barnes & Noble about the greed you people have.

This is a waste of time, you take your path and money and I will take mine. Thanks for the comments.

Your comment basically on all of us who are just average, poor or choose careers such as teachers, fireman, etc, we made our choice.

Yeah that is right we did and can be a hell of a lot more proud of it. Nobody is complaining about it, it appears that is your attitude, I have more money than you. Have at it.

[Ikonoklast]

22. Are you ever wrong

I was a AMC&BW of N.A. and UFCW member for over twenty-four years. I've walked picket lines for organizing and strike efforts. I have been, and always will be, a working man.

If you think that I'm 'rich', you are delusional. I own my own business now, but that's because I needed to make more money as the single parent of three college-age kids.

I am for fair compensation for work done. Period. Doesn't matter if you are the lowest-paid flunky, or the highest performer in your industry. What's fair is fair. You make money for the boss, you share in the profits.

I guess you'd settle for making less than your fellow employees, for more work done.
Doesn't make much sense to me, but it's your right.

[EV_Ares]

31. Whatever you say, I told you I was done with this. You are the one

wanting to give us the impression of your money, you brought it up, I didn't and I do not care.

Where did I ever say I was right or wrong? Again, you are the one that is going on about this guy in your eyes being fairly compensated. You are the one saying that teachers, policemen, firemen all made a choice for their salaries. Again, you have the right to belittle, yes those choices were made and proud of it.

You are the one who is applauding the greed and money of Wall Street. Yes, it is their right. Nobody has argued that greed and money is not legal.

OK, thank you again for your comments and you have a nice evening.

[Oeditpus Rex]

23. In the case of baseball, it isn't really about generating revenue

but about players getting their piece of the pie.

Major League Baseball has created enormous revenue for itself through product marketing and cable television — particularly the Yankees, who own their own cable network. Agents know how much all this brings in as well as they know their own phone numbers, and it gives them tremendous bargaining power.

There's no true measure of a ballplayer's worth. Only relatively can a case be made that a .300 batting average is worth X, 15 wins worth Y, etc. (Owners tried a system in the late 1800s, rating players A, B, C or D on their performance and paying them on an according scale. But the ratings were easily manipulated by the owners and the system didn't last long.) Agents can wave around such information as attendance at road games, which is generally considered the best measure of player popularity, and how many shirts, etc., with a particular player's name or number on them are purchased. But these aren't true measures as there may be other factors involved.

It boils down to agents saying, "You made X from TV rights in the last five years and Y from cap sales, etc. etc. etc., and my guy is responsible for Z percent of that, and if you don't give him a Z-like figure, there're other clubs that will."

In a way, baseball is a victim (if you think of it that way) of its own marketing strategy.

(I can't speak to other professional sports. I don't follow them.)

[TahitiNut]

25. A Harvard MBA cashes in on the mythology ... and the "boy's club."

I've had Harvard MBAs working for me. I'll take a Chicago MBA over them any day ... and public university MBAs (with decent undergrad disciplines) every day.

[Ikonoklast]

26. But they get their foot in the door easier because of it

After that, it's performance all the way.

If you make money for the owners, it doesn't matter if you went to University of Mars.

[TahitiNut]

28. Again ... that's not my perception based on my own direct experience.

I regard it as a myth. :shrug:

Harvard does NOT get its reputation from its business school. It has gotten its reputation from the college and the law school. The business school is mediocre, at best, imho. At the same time, its alumni are good at networking and placement - and 'connecting.' The boys club is very active.

[Buns_of_Fire]

13. I'm glad to see he's running again. Build up that nice, lean muscle tissue.

When we start eating the rich, I don't want to get stuck with a fatty cut (like Jabba the CEO, formerly of Exxon), or just skin and bones and bile (like Ann Coulter, currently of Hell's Harpies).

Dibs on the drumstick!

[RB TexLa]

18. The idea of eating people who have more money than you is supposed to be funny?

:shrug:

[otherlander]

20. He could be baked. We have to do something about

the World Bank officials, though. They're kind of old and past their prime, so we'll have to fry them if they're going to taste like anything.

[TahitiNut]

24. Mr. McGoldrick obviously lives in gratitude for a life of abundance in an abundant Universe.

:eyes: I'm sure he's a humble servant of humanity. :puke:

[Ikonoklast]

27. See: Global Fund For Children

He's one of the volunteer board members.
They seem to have done some good in the world.

He may do more good than many here can, simply because he has the means to do so.

[Ferretherder]

30. And I, for one, would say he's...

...MORE than fairly compensated.

I am in no way trying to deride his charitable work, I would only say that it is EXTREMELY difficult to work up the necessary Di Hydrogen-Oxide and Sodium combo to pour forth from my sad, infuriated and totally sympathetic eyes for our hero of the downtrodden, here. I am sure this man has, in fact, worked 'very hard', indeed, for his money, and made more than a few 'sacrifices' for the level of compensation afforded him.

So have MILLIONS of people in this country, and around the World. It just so happens that HIS job rewards him with amounts of money that other people can only dream of ever possessing. If he feels he is unfairly compensated for his efforts, well, it isn't for me to judge whether his case has any merit or not - it really isn't any of my business. It is, however, VERY, VERY difficult to feel even a modicum of sympathy for this individual......given his MORE than comfy current situation.

Just my take on things.