By msnbc.com staff
Pity the poor investment bankers.
Facing a sharp decline in revenue from banking and trading, many Wall Street firms have trimmed 2011 discretionary pay, according to a Bloomberg News report, and that has translated into shrinking paychecks and widespread unease.
Wall Street types like Andrew Schiff, director of marketing for broker-dealer Euro Pacific Capital, are feeling the pain.
Schiff told Bloomberg that his reduced bonus means his $350,000 salary doesn?t cover his family?s private-school tuition, a Kent, Conn., summer rental and the upgrade they would like for his 1,200-square- foot Brooklyn duplex.
?I feel stuck,? Schiff told Bloomberg. ?The New York that I wanted to have is still just beyond my reach.?
Cue the tiny violins.
Across Wall Street, smaller bonus checks are making upscale lifestyles harder to maintain, Bloomberg reports, based on interviews with bankers, accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.
At Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital, the cuts were at least 25 percent, Bloomberg said, while Morgan Stanley has capped cash bonuses at $125,000.
However, Bloomberg also notes that median household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau -- lower than the previous year and less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein?s $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011.
Richard Scheiner, a 58 year-old real-estate investor and hedge-fund manager, told Bloomberg that he spends about $500 a month to park one of his two Audis in a garage and at least $7,500 a year each for memberships at the Trump National Golf Club and a gun club in upstate New York.
He also pays $17,000 a year on food, health care, boarding and a daily dog-walker (who charges $17 each per outing) to look after a labradoodle named Zelda and a rescued bichon fries named Duke.
But to make ends meet he has sold two motorcycles he doesn?t use and makes do with his Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet, which he called ?the Volkswagen of supercars,? Bloomberg said.
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