Asymmetrical Information

Wall Street Bonuses Head South

Wall Street Bonuses Head South for the Winter

The Wall Street Journal says that bonuses will decline 30% this year (subscription required). This was a shock to me, as from what my friends on the Street have been telling me, I expected the decline to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 100%. But then I realized that first, the big guys up top, who skew the numbers heavily upward, will continue to be taken care of, and second, that much of the rest will be the kind of bonus that isn't green and negotiable. For example, the rumor is that Morgan Stanley is forcing everyone to take their bonus in stock. Company stock. Isn't this the kind of thing that's getting Enron into trouble with Richard Cohen?