Here's a real sad story: Goldmanites fall out of the 1%

[sinkingfeeling]

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/09/10/goldman-sachs-one-percent/

FORTUNE -- The 99% may soon have some new members - employees of Goldman Sachs.

The average compensation at Goldman (GS) is likely to fall by nearly $100,000 by the end of next year as new regulations, fewer deals and legal payouts hurt the firm's profitability. That's the conclusion of a recent report from a European division of rival JPMorgan Chase (JPM).

As recently as two years ago, Goldman's annual pay, which includes everyone from the people who work in the firm's IT department to CEO Lloyd Blankfein, had averaged $412,000. That salary put employees of the elite investment bank solidly in the top 1% of all earners in the United States. Last year, the cut off for the 1% was $368,000.

All told, the analysts at JPMorgan say, if Goldman were to do nothing, regulatory reforms will knock the firm's return on equity, a key measure of profitability, down to 10% from 17% shortly before the financial reforms went into place, though in many years it was much higher than that.

In response, the analysts believe Goldman will cut employees and salaries in order to lower costs and repair profits. Goldman is likely to send an additional 4,400 people from its investment banking division packing. As of the first quarter, Goldman's staff had already shrunk by about 2,000 in the past year.