The phoniest cover story for robbing the holders of common stock and the people who create actual value. A little vignette about the lizards at Lazard:

What should have been a profitable quarter a Lazard Ltd. turned into a surprising loss due to the investment bank paying its people big bonuses.

The firm doled out $616 million in compensation and benefits to about 2,300 employees last quarter, or more than triple the amount handed out in the same period in 2008. It was a consequence, Lazard said, of a decision to pay more bonuses in cash and accelerate some deferred cash awards from a prior year. But so great was the firm’s generosity that compensation costs overwhelmed quarterly revenues and resulted in a net loss of about $55 million for the fourth quarter. The charges also almost wiped out full-year profits.

From watertiger:

Très impressive, no? Seems the average bonus at Lazard was a measly $565,000. Pshaw, that’s chicken scratch! You have to hand it to this country – where else is “talent” defined as rapaciousness and greed?

Someone needs to remind Lazard’s board of directors that the company was taken public in 2005, and that they have a whole host of presumably angry shareholders to explain this grotesque loss to. And gentlemen, this hardly qualifies as an “explanation”:

“[Our compensation policies] should enhance our competitiveness and drive shareholder value,” Mr. Jacobs said, in a prepared statement. “Our goal is to grow annual compensation expense at a slower rate than revenues.”

Get the fuck outta here! It’s the company’s goal to ensure that it takes in more than it pays out? What kind of crazy accounting practice is that?

I've seen bloated, grotesque thieves like this up close before. They are the flesh-eating Ebola virus of our economic system.