Goldman Pay Tops Bear Stearns's Slumping Market Value

Goldman Sachs set aside $16.9 billion to pay salaries, benefits, and bonuses, according to the company's third-quarter earnings report. This is enough to buy Bear Stearns Cos., which is the stock market values at $14.7 billion.

Bloomberg.com reports that "the figures demonstrate how the industry's fortunes diverged this year during the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and a credit-market contraction that saddled the biggest lenders and brokerages with at least $40 billion of writedowns and losses."

Read more of this 11.07.07 Bloomberg article.