It may be fashionable to slag off investment bankers for their role, collectively, in getting us all into this mess. It should also be remembered that they are, in fact, people too  indeed people with rather dim employment prospects right now whose pay cheques, on the whole, will be sharply down from the giddy levels of the boom time.

 Unlike many listed company executives, their pay does actually reflect their output  even if, in the real world, their salaries do look ridiculous.

That said, investment banking and trading is a diverse business. While the likes of equity capital markets people (who do floats), stockbrokers (who sell shares) and structured finance people (who concoct useless financial instruments that blow other people up) are doing it hard  and face the spectre of unemployment  other players are doing quite nicely.

Word from the market is that bankers at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have gone into marketing mode: internal bonus marketing that is.

Both banks rule off the bonus books at the end of November and there are three rounds of review to adjudicate on a bonus.

It will not come as a surprise that the stock quotient of the banker's bonus will be higher this year, although the timely inflow of cash by the US authorities has perversely meant their bonus pools suddenly became far more liquid and easier to fund.

Thank you Uncle Sam, make that Uncle Sam Sir. The thing is that many, many traders and sales people in fixed income (that is bonds) have had a stellar year (not so for credit departments). This is the norm in a volatile markets with sharply lower official rates. So the compensation committees will be trying to balance the following:

- what do we need to pay people so they don't leave?

- who and what is the bid in the market?

- can we pay our producers and clip those executives who have to report their pay so that public opinion is not too adverse?

The top executives' packages are disclosed. The top executives will therefore be taking home less than last year; less until the profits begin to grow again. Their profit producing subordinates will do alright, say banking sources.

Blokes like Morgan Stanley chief John Mack, who is a reasonable and a good example for other CEOs/presidents, will probably take zero again this year. Mack is one of the few who stands by his results and does not try to rip the system for every last dollar.

At this time of year, anyone who has made it good (generally the figure is $US50 million of non-franchise production, that is, a trader who has made this kind of money from his own trading as opposed to sitting at the desk and receiving free money from the franchise flow - will be booking his flight to New York to lobby his senior manager.

"The New York office can become a real log jam of guys doing marketing trips,'' says one insider. "At one of those banks I heard it mentioned to 'not bother', hence why the concern among the punters.

"Many of those in the banking community have lost 30% to 40% of their net wealth in the past year, mostly due to unvested stock revaluations, their own stock portfolio revaluing (though many of us were very, very conservative with our own money  again quite perverse), property revaluations and quite likely personal trading losses that would have occurred in attempting to catch the bottom of the fall.

"It is staggering that perhaps 20% of the global wealth effect that took decades to accumulate has been lost in just three months, and much more for many banking people.''

Many of my mates, says another source, are just happy to have a job now. They know it will be hard for a couple of years.

mwest@fairfax.com.au