How to Cover Wall Street

Good bye for now.

Wall Street makes more than almost any other industry as a whole, and the average salary doesn’t do enough to reflect the extremes.

I agree that $360,000 isn’t an exorbitant amount. But what’s the median and mode? I definitely know what the highs are: $1 million, $2 million, $3 million…

And a name like Felix Rohatyn shouldn’t be placed together with Richard Fuld’s, even if they both worked for Lehman Brothers.

Those who can serve our economy beyond serving themselves should be rewarded for their efforts, especially when they take immense pay cuts to do so — Henry Paulson excluded.

But CEOs like Fuld, who made $750,000 with a cash bonus of $4.2 million in 2007, have long been overpaid. So have most of the other top-tier executives and financial officers at banks and brokerage firms.

I’m not implying America should go Socialist. But part of deleveraging is getting used to less money.

Considering the past year’s events, giving Wall Street any bonus at all is a slap in the face to those who have worked just as hard and can barely afford to send their kids to college.

When I think about the journalists and teachers who need to find other jobs to live within their means, and the doctors who make less to work outside private insurance — people who are just as fundamental to preserving our country’s health and integrity — I am forever reminded that Wall Street makes enough off salary.

But as a believer in free market economies, I also believe that salaries, stock options and other rewards should be determined by the markets. Unfortunately, ours is tied down for the moment.