It's been reported that Morgan Stanley (MS 0.10%) CEO James Gorman will be seeing another pay cut this year. This continues a trend in the investment banking industry of constrained pay and cutting-back of jobs. However, looking at fourth-quarter results -- though we don't want to base too much on a single quarter -- it appears that such cutbacks have had little impact on investment banks' performance, as they performed well during Q4.
Looking at the bigger picture, what will it mean for the broader economy if the pay and/or jobs aren't there like they used to be in investment banking? One possibility is that a whole slew of hungry and talented workers, who would otherwise be chasing after Wall Street paychecks, might be inclined to pursue more, shall we say, "productive" endeavors instead. Check out the video below for Fool financial analyst Matt Koppenheffer's take on the subject.
