Goldman average pay to fall to only $314,000 this year

Oh the humanity! Don't we all shed a tear for the leading team that ran the global economy into the ground? While we will hear plenty of cries and complaints of evil socialism, the pampered class of Wall Street still doesn't get that they are the ones who caused the crash through their greed.

The deregulation that they had to have in the 1990s happened and it only took them a few years to see the results. New Wall Street regulations are having an impact, though we still need more disclosure and more control over the Wild West gamblers. They have proven over and over that they can't be trusted, nor should they be trusted with controlling the economy.

Sniffle, sniffle. How will they explain being bumped out of the 1% to the guys at the club?

The average compensation at Goldman (GS) is likely to fall by nearly $100,000 by the end of next year as new regulations, fewer deals and legal payouts hurt the firm's profitability. That's the conclusion of a recent report from a European division of rival JPMorgan Chase (JPM).

As recently as two years ago, Goldman's annual pay, which includes everyone from the people who work in the firm's IT department to CEO Lloyd Blankfein, had averaged $412,000. That salary put employees of the elite investment bank solidly in the top 1% of all earners in the United States. Last year, the cut off for the 1% was $368,000.

But by the end of next year, though, analysts at JPMorgan Cazenove expect compensation at Goldman to average just $314,000. That will bump the average Goldmanite all the way down to near the bottom of the top 2% of all U.S. earners. The cut off for the 98% tops out at around $290,000.

Even after dropping into the 2%, they're still doing much better than others who lost their jobs and houses. The pampered class should consider themselves lucky.