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Posted 08 December 2002 - 02:21 AM
The Envelope, Please: Those Bonuses Come Inching Back
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
LAYOFFS, bankruptcies and falling stock prices: 2002 has been full of them, along with other corporate troubles. This is not likely to be a good year for bonuses. Or is it?
Company executives, union officials and compensation consultants say that when millions of American workers receive bonuses — or word about their bonuses — in the next several weeks, some will be pleasantly surprised. From top executives like Douglas R. Conant, the chief executive of Campbell Soup, to auto workers, magazine editors and pharmaceutical employees, many people will actually receive bigger bonus checks than they did last year.
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It's immediate and it's continuous," said Frank Fernandez, the chief economist of the Securities Industry Association. "You're already seeing this weakness in the real estate market in New York." Sales of some luxury goods have remained strong, he said, because people seem to be having "one last fling" at conspicuous consumption.
On Wall Street, investment bankers and traders at firms like the Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley are bracing for thinner envelopes. On average, the 2002 payouts, which account for the bulk of annual compensation, will be down at least 35 percent, Wall Street executives and pay consultants said. But that means only that a typical managing director at a major investment bank will earn about $1 million for 2002, down from $1.6 million last year and $2.1 million two years ago, they said.
Story
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Pearl Harbor Day, 2002
By FRANK RICH
istory will eventually tell us whether Pearl Harbor Day 2002 is the gateway to a war as necessary as World War II or to a tragedy of unintended consequences redolent of World War I. But for this moment, farce has the edge: A savage dictator is delivering a "full" accounting of his weapons arsenal that only a fool would take for fact, and a president of the United States is pretending (not very hard) to indulge this U.N. rigmarole while he calls up more reserves for the confrontation he seeks. The rest of us are but pawns in a great game that only Joseph Heller could have devised.
The game comes with an ever-growing cast of peculiar players. In Iraq, there's a team of inspectors out of "H.M.S. Pinafore," charged with a mission that is probably impossible and whose results will soon be disregarded by the relevant parties anyway. In Washington, there's an unintentionally comic spokesman for our ally Saudi Arabia who on Tuesday declared that his country was the victim of unwarranted American intolerance bordering on "hate."
This guy can actually write
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Iraq Says Report to the U.N. Shows No Banned Arms
By JOHN F. BURNS
Iraq delivered a 12,000-page declaration on banned weapons to the United Nations.
• Buildup Leaves U.S. Nearly Set to Start Attack
• News Analysis: Will Bush's War March Slow?
• Week in Review: How Today's Stage Was Set
Lawmakers Want Cabinet Post for an Intelligence Director
By JAMES RISEN and DAVID JOHNSTON
The national intelligence director would have authority over the broad intelligence community, including the C.I.A.
Two Casualties as Bush Seeks Economic Fix
By TODD S. PURDUM
It was hardly a shock that Paul H. O'Neill and Lawrence B. Lindsey became casualties of the administration's struggle to get a handle on the economy.
• Chart: An Odd Couple's Unfortunate Legacy
• News Analysis: Challenges for New Team
Using Synonyms for Race, College Strives for Diversity
By JACQUES STEINBERG
Rice University has developed creative, even sly ways to meet its diversity goals and still obey a court ruling that prohibits considering race in admissions.
Nancie Battaglia for The New York Times
Bob Reiss at Santa's Workshop, a theme park in the Adirondack Mountains. His attempt to sell the park went awry when the would-be buyer turned out to be a convicted felon. Go to Article
WASHINGTON
In Louisiana, a Democrat Wins a Tough Senate Race
NATIONAL
Church's Accounting of Abuse Is Criticized
EDITORIALS/OP-ED
• Dowd: Cheneyville Christmas
• Friedman: Bush, Iraq and Sister Souljah
Much More Times Front Page
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