The Bonus Era Is Over

You should quit and go to work at a small hedge fund or private broker.

There. That's the memo you should be receiving right now if you work at Goldman Sachs (GS - commentary - Trade Now) or Morgan Stanley (MS - commentary - Trade Now) or JPMorgan (JPM - commentary - Trade Now) (in private banking) or Credit Suisse (CS - commentary - Trade Now) or anyone else that is pubic. The days of the "bonus" are over if you are at a public firm. The days when you did well and they sat down and figured your cut are gone. The American people, led by President Obama, won't stand for it.

I don't know how else to read the extension of the pay scrutiny from TARP banks to non-TARP banks. It just isn't going to be worth it unless you aren't in the public space. The bonus era is over.

But the problem with that is that unless you are a salesperson making commissions and not bonus, I don't know why in the heck you would stay. At least with the way things look now.

What's funny is that there are so many creative and positive alignments now being drawn up in corporate America to put the shareholders even with the managements that it's just the wrong time for this. Much of the creative thinking is right along what Lloyd Blankfein and Goldman Sachs are doing, giving you stock units that vest long term at certain benchmarks, which is perfect. That's what gets management on the same page as shareholders. What more can you do?

But it seems like the government's agenda is to handicap the big firms to the point where they can't be too big to fail because they will not be big enough to attract!

Look, I don't think we really know what they are going to do, because I don't think they know what they are going to do. But so much of their reactions initially seem like fits of pique and petulance.

Maybe if they think it through, they'll recognize that all you have to do is work with the SEC to develop compensation rules. They will be obeyed. They can be reasonable. You don't have to seem like Stalin just came to the boardroom.

But that's who it seems like is visiting right now.

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.

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Know what you own: Other companies that received TARP funds include Wells Fargo (WFC - commentary - Trade Now), Bank of America (BAC - commentary - Trade Now) and Citigroup (C - commentary - Trade Now).

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