It’s bonus season on Wall Street, and a record-setting 2025 is yielding bigger paychecks than ever for America’s investment bankers, thanks to their hard work doing, well, what exactly?
It’s bonus season on Wall Street, and a record-setting 2025 is yielding bigger paychecks than ever for America’s investment bankers, thanks to their hard work doing, well, what exactly? Answering that question is surprisingly difficult and helps to explain many of the nation’s most serious economic and social problems. It all starts, like so many of life’s puzzles, with Mary Poppins.
If you’ve taken an economics course — or if you at least enjoy classic family movies — you probably remember the scene: Young Jane and Michael Banks have come to visit the bank where their father works. When the bank’s chairman, Mr. Dawes Sr., snatches Michael’s tuppence, the boy shouts: “Give it back! Gimme back my money!” Overhearing the kerfuffle, a customer assumes the institution is refusing to return a customer’s deposit. Next thing you know, the bank run is on.
