When We Talk About Merit Pay In Education, Is This What We're Talking About?
2 min read
From Goldman Sachs Reports $428 Million Loss
Goldman Sachs, weighed down by problems in its private equity portfolio and the broader global economic woes, reported a loss of $428 million, compared with a $1.7 billion profit a year ago.
From later in the same article:
The quarterly loss is likely to translate into smaller bonuses for Goldman's roughly 30,000 employees. So far this year, the firm set aside $10.01 billion to pay compensation and benefits, down 24 percent for the same period in 2010. Firms accrue compensation all year and pay it out in the fourth quarter.
While Goldman has set less money aside to pay employees, the ratio of compensation and benefits to net revenue in the third quarter was 44 percent, in line with previous accruals. Goldman, like most Wall Street firms, has been cutting staff in recent months. At the end of the third quarter, it had 34,200 employees, down 1,300, or nearly 4 percent, from just three months ago.
To translate: Goldman Sachs has fired a bunch of people, and, on average, those remaining are getting paid at the same rate as before.
When education "reformers" talk about merit pay, is this an example of how it should work? If a school tried to get away with this, politicians, pundits, and corporate reformers would be tripping over themselves to make an example of the wastefulness of the organization. But, when an investment bank does this, it's just another example of how the "best" and "brightest" need "incentives" to stay loyal.
Image Credit: "Bird stealing meat" taken by Tambako the Jaguar, published under an Attribution No Derivatives license.
