By Jim Pearce

The day after Christmas – December 26th – is affectionately known as “Boxing Day” in many parts of the world. A holiday of sorts, it is named for the gift boxes that employers would give to their employees. Dating back to the Middle Ages, it's generally believed that these gifts were fairly modest and made to the servants and tradesmen that toiled under much wealthier noblemen.

There may have been a time when the traders and analysts that work for Wall Street investment banking firms were once viewed as little more than subjects of their much wealthier overlords, but those days are long gone. In fact, to a large extent their roles have reversed, as top-tier traders and analysts command enormous salaries and are held in higher regard than the brokers who employ them.

Of course, instead of getting modest presents in gift boxes, these titans of Wall Street receive bonus checks in the millions, even during a down year for the stock market. And with all of the major stock market indexes at or near record highs, this year's version of Boxing Day in lower Manhattan (and outlying suburbs of New Jersey and Connecticut) should be a particularly generous one.

But who is really the giver of these extravagant gifts? Is it their employers, feeling charitable and happily divesting themselves of a small fortune very year to keep these valued employees in the fold? I don't think so. Technically the money comes from them, but in reality the firm acts as little more than a pass-through vehicle, keeping track of the fees and commission income these employees generate and then keeping a portion for themselves before passing on the remainder.

In truth, the givers of these gargantuan-sized bonuses are the investors who supply the capital that ultimately ends up being spent on the products and services those Wall Street firms produce. To be clear, that isn't necessarily a bad thing as the vast majority of them are what keep our world-beating economy humming. But is it really necessary?