Bill Mann for the Motley Fool has a great op-ed on the whole stock option expensing debate: “Begging the Options Question.” The article makes the point that the argument that stock options are needed for employee retention purposes makes no sense in industries where lay-offs are common and where jobs are being shipped overseas. Mr. Mann mentions this article at MSNBC detailing the move by some U.S. investment banks “to hire Indian stock analysts in order to reduce research costs.” The article states that, by doing so, “J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs and others can pay the going Indian rate for analysts, around $25,000 a year, instead of the six-figure salaries commanded by employees performing the same function in New York.”
Quote of Note from the MSNBC article–“Banks move analyst jobs to India: Wall Street seeks to save costs on number-crunching tasks“: “Alan Johnson, a New York-based compensation consultant said a US employee with an MBA going for an analyst position could make between $100,000 and $145,000 and a college graduate could receive about $65,000. In Mumbai, an MBA can expect about $25,000 and other employees might make half that. Real estate and employee benefit costs are also much cheaper in India.”