New York -- The global economic crisis has finally caught up with Wall Street insiders who triggered it. They are discovering that their traditional year-end compensation is lowering the balance on their bank accounts, rather than raising it.
"The same team that invented mortgage derivatives has come up with what they call Reverse Bonus Checks," said an inside source who wished to remain anonymous.
"They look like regular bonus checks, real pretty with lots of zeros. But when deposited into a bank account they work like a withdrawal ticket, emptying the account and depositing its funds into the United States Treasury."
Not surprisingly, the financial community is up in arms over an instrument that destroys the personal wealth of the greediest of the greedy.
"We deserve every penny of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses we receive every year for doing our jobs," the insider said. "We not only have to know how to add and subtract, but occasionally we multiply and divide as well."
At issue is the logic behind Reverse Bonus Checks. "A bonus supposed to be a good thing," said the Wall Street veteran. "It's a reward for spending 3 or 4 hours a day punching your calculator and contacting your buddies. It doesn't make any sense for it to destroy your savings."
But the team that developed mortgage derivatives and reverse bonus checks points out that both are similar in intent and impact.
"People who invested in mortgage derivatives saw their fortunes wiped out," a spokesperson for the development team said. "Now the people who sold them those derivatives are going to go broke as well. I guess that's why they call them brokers."
