What the Best-Paid Wall Street CEOs Make And How Many People They Fire

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CNN Money has tracked the best-paid suits in finance and made a list ranking them. I thought it would be fun to compare that to layoff numbers.

At the outset, CNN mentions that Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf couldn’t be included because the company hasn’t released his total compensation for 2012. If it were the same as in 2011, however, he would handily take second place.

At the top is Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Yep, he was in that role during the 2008 bailouts – he’s had it since 2006. (Which is when he picked it up from Henry Paulson, who was U.S. Treasury Secretary during those bailouts. How about that.) He brought home $21 million last year, a $9 million increase from the year before. Goldman Sachs has an annual ritual of firing 5 percent of its workforce, but will probably cut more than usual this year. Over the past two years they’ve laid off 3,300 people.

In second is Brian Moynihan, Bank of America’s CEO. His total compensation for the year was over $12 million, up $5 million from the year before. He’s cut 22,000 jobs since the Fall 2011, and the original plan was 30,000 by the end of this year.

Next is Michael Corbat at Citigroup, who made $11.5 million last year. He’s new to the job, but can probably expect a big pay hike in a couple years when Citi’s restructured pay packages that tie pay to performance (stock, not his) kick in. He dove into the job with a promise to fire 11,000 people.

JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon took home $11.5 million for 2012 as well. That’s a sharp drop from 2011, but his bonus was cut in half mainly because the company lost $6 billion last summer and tried to hide it. He said in 2011 that we should stop bashing the rich and that rich doesn’t necessarily mean bad. Oh, and this week he said he’s cutting 17,000 jobs in the next two years.

Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman took home $6 million last year, down from $10.5 million in 2011. He’s only planning to cut 1,600 jobs. When John Stumpf’s compensation is reported, he’ll probably get bumped from the Top 5.

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