Pay for United CEO Jeff Smisek jumps to USD$14.7 million from USD$4.4 million

the obscenity of executive compensation is truly staggering...

Compensation for Jeff Smisek, chief executive of United Continental Holdings, surged in 2011, reflecting greater responsibilities after a 2010 merger that created the world's largest airline, according to a filing.
Total compensation rose to USD$14.7 million last year from USD$4.4 million the previous year, the company said in a proxy statement on Friday.

Much of the increase came from a USD$7.5 million stock award that vests over three years and is subject to performance goals including revenue and cost synergies from the merger of United and Continental Airlines, according to the filing.

Smisek was also awarded USD$4.4 million non-equity incentive compensation. About USD$2.4 million of that was payment for years 2009-2011 that was earned in 2011 and based partly on Continental's performance before the October 2010 merger.

even more staggering is that it comes on top of a $400M loss in the last quarter...

The parent of United Airlines reported a first-quarter loss that more than doubled from a year ago thanks to costs related to integrating Continental Airlines.

United Continental Holdings said it had a $448 million net loss, or a $1.36 loss per share, in the first three months of the year, not as bad as analysts expected.

Excluding $162 million in charges mainly linked to the integration costs, the loss amounted to $286 million, or 87 cents per share, UAL said. The Wall Street average estimate was for a $1.03 loss per share.

since i used to work at united, i know first-hand just how much the officers are focused on themselves and their own personal gains... i've already been "treated" to the "new" united and, believe me, it's no improvement... in fact, quite the contrary...

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It's good to be a (Bank of America) banksta

at a time when bank of america is widely seen as one of the most voracious plunderers in the world, how can its ceo allow this to happen...? oh, wait... it's going in to his own pocket... well, how can the board of directors allow it to happen...? how can the shareholders allow it to happen...? how can we as citizens allow it to happen...?

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan's pay quadruples

In a year when Bank of America’s stock plunged 58% and the company announced plans to lay off 30,000 employees, chief executive Brian Moynihan’s compensation package more than quadrupled to nearly $8.1 million.

Here’s why: In 2011, the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank recorded $1.4 billion in profit after losing $2.2 billion the year before. So far this year, the stock is up more than 70%.

So although the bank’s compensation and benefits committee kept Moynihan’s salary the same at $950,000, he also landed $6.1 million in performance-reliant stock. Then there’s the $420,000 worth of tax and financial advice, along with use of the company’s aircraft, that’s also part of his package.

Along with various other components, Moynihan will have made nearly 317% more last year than the $1.9 million he pulled in during 2010, according to a BofA filing Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

yes, that's the bank of america ceo collecting almost 4 times what he collected the previous year, the ceo who heads a bank about which matt taibbi says this...

Matt Taibbi: Bank of America Is a “Raging Hurricane of Theft and Fraud”

There are two things every American needs to know about Bank of America.

The first is that it's corrupt. This bank has systematically defrauded almost everyone with whom it has a significant business relationship, cheating investors, insurers, homeowners, shareholders, depositors, and the state. It is a giant, raging hurricane of theft and fraud, spinning its way through America and leaving a massive trail of wiped-out retirees and foreclosed-upon families in its wake.

The second is that all of us, as taxpayers, are keeping that hurricane raging. Bank of America is not just a private company that systematically steals from American citizens: it's a de facto ward of the state that depends heavily upon public support to stay in business. In fact, without the continued generosity of us taxpayers, and the extraordinary indulgence of our regulators and elected officials, this company long ago would have been swallowed up by scandal, mismanagement, prosecution and litigation, and gone out of business. It would have been liquidated and its component parts sold off, perhaps into a series of smaller regional businesses that would have more respect for the law, and be more responsive to their customers.

i guess it's time to revive my post from last november, an ows spoof on the Geto Boys’ 1992 song “Damn it feels good to be a gangsta”...

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America's top bosses enjoyed pay hikes of between 27 and 40% last year

and people still have the nerve to ask what it is that has people in the occupy movement so upset...

via alternet...

America's top bosses enjoyed pay hikes of between 27 and 40% last year, according to the largest survey of US CEO pay. The dramatic bounceback comes as the latest government figures show wages for the majority of Americans are failing to keep up with inflation.

America's highest paid executive took home more than $145.2m, and as stock prices recovered across the board, the median value of bosses' profits on stock options rose 70% in 2010, from $950,400 to $1.3m.

when i think about how little it takes me to get by especially in comparison to these grossly overpaid toads, i see red... i've worked with some of these senior guys and i can tell you, their vastly over-inflated opinion of themselves is the only thing that compares in size to their vastly over-inflated compensation...

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Goldman Sachs takes a 3d Quarter loss but that doesn't impact the bonus pool

THIS is precisely why ows is garnering such a response in the u.s. and worldwide...

Today’s Goldman Sachs earning reports provides a valuable lesson on how things really work inside Wall Street’s largest investment houses. Goldmhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifan Sachs had an awful three months, losing $428 million in the third quarter of 2011, and yet it continued to shovel billions into the bonus pool it will share with its employees at year’s end.

Through the first nine months of 2011, Goldman set aside $10 billion in its compensation fund. If Goldman’s 30,000 employees split that bounty evenly, that would work out to $333,000 per person—plus the billions more Goldman will no doubt set aside in the last few months of the year.

[...]

But that’s the beauty of working at a major investment bank. Performance doesn’t matter nearly as much as just showing up. Goldman booked $13 billion in pre-tax profits in 2010—a steep drop from the $20 billion the bank booked in 2009. Despite a precipitous drop in profits between 2009 and 2010 and a stock stuck in neutral throughout the year, the Goldman board of directors raised Blankfein’s base salary to $2 million, up from $600,000, and showered an extra $13 million in stock grants on Blankfein and his executive team.

Not bad for the executives of a bank forced to pay a $550 million fine after being accused by the SEC of duping its clients by selling them shares of a morhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giftgage-backed security they allowed a hedge firm to secretly hand-pick. Still, this is hardly like the fat and happy subprime mortgage days, when Goldman was buying toxic subprime mortgages and selling them to unsuspecting clients. In 2007, the year before the economic collapse, Blankfein made $68 million in stock and bonus money.

Is it any wonder the Occupy Wall Street crowd might think there’s something rotten about the system?

meanwhile, lloyd blankfein, goldman crook-in-chief, is crying all the way to the bank to deposit his haul...


Lloyd Blankfein, CEO, Goldman Sachs

"Our results were significantly impacted by the environment and we were disappointed to record a loss in the quarter,” said Lloyd Blankfein, the chairman and chief executive, in a statement.

yes, is it any wonder...?

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Americans: Better to let the rich keep their money than to have it benefit economic and social inferiors

a remarkably thoughtful piece from the guardian's peter wilby on why there isn't more populist anger over the obscene amounts of money and power accruing to our super-rich elites...

Between 1996-7 and 2007-8, the earnings of someone in the middle of the income distribution rose (1997 prices) from £16,000 to £17,100 - barely £100, or less than 0.7% a year. Even the increase for those quite near the top of the income scale, better off than 90% of their fellow citizens, was unspectacular. Their inflation-discounted pay crept up from £36,700 to £41,500, or less than £450 (1.2%) a year. The top 0.1% scooped the jackpot. They got a £19,000 pay rise every year, taking their incomes to £538,600, a gain of 67% over 11 years. The commission gives no figures for the top 0.01%, but we can be confident they did even better and dramatically so.

That is the most important point about what has happened to incomes in Britain and America during the neoliberal era: the very rich are soaring ahead, leaving behind not only manual workers - now a diminishing minority - but also the middle-class masses, including doctors, teachers, academics, solicitors, architects, Whitehall civil servants and, indeed, many CEOs who don't run FTSE 100 companies, to say nothing of the marketing, purchasing, personnel, sales and production executives below them. That is why, over the past decade, some of the most anguished cries about high incomes and inequality have appeared in the Telegraph and Mail.

The commission describes levels of top pay as an instance of "market failure" because most arguments used to defend it just don't stack up. For example, despite claims that pay levels are dictated by global competition, the majority of FTSE 100 CEOs are British, promoted from within their companies. Only one CEO has been poached in the past five years - by a British rival. But top pay also suggests political failure, particularly on the left. To put it crudely, why can't leftwing parties harness middle-class anger against the super-rich? Surveys show a substantial majority of the electorate agree that differences in income are too large and that ordinary people don't get a fair share. Only one in eight disagree. Why is this so difficult to translate into a political programme that could command mass support?

One reason why the working classes so often disappointed the left was that, having little daily contact with the rich and little knowledge of how they lived, they simply didn't think about inequality much, or regard the wealthy as direct competitors for resources. As the sociologist Garry Runciman observed: "Envy is a difficult emotion to sustain across a broad social distance." Nearly 50 years ago he found manual workers were less likely than non-manual workers to think other people were "noticeably better off". Even now most Britons underestimate the rewards of bankers and executives. Top pay has reached such levels that, rather like interstellar distances, what the figures mean is hard to grasp.

But the gap between the richest 1% or 2% and everybody else in the top 20% or 30% is now so great and growing so rapidly that, one might reasonably think, it should change the terms of political trade. The income distance may be huge but the social distance is not. Those in the top 2% and the next 28% have often been to the same schools and universities. More important, they compete for scarce resources: places in fee-charging schools, houses in the best areas, high-end personal services. The super-rich have provoked raging inflation in the prices of these goods. Many of the not-so-rich were born into the professional classes and high expectations. Now, to their surprise, they find themselves struggling. In income distribution, their interests are closer to those of the mass of the population than to people they once saw as their peers.

They are not, however, imminently likely to join a crusade for equality. This generation of the middle classes has internalised the values of individualist aspiration, as zealously propagated by Tony Blair as by Margaret Thatcher. It does not look to the application of social justice to improve its lot. It expects to rely on its own efforts to get ahead and, crucially, to maintain its position.

As psychologists will tell you, fear of loss is more powerful than the prospect of gain. The struggling middle classes look down more anxiously than they look up, particularly in recession and sluggish recovery. Polls show they dislike high income inequalities but are lukewarm about redistribution. They worry that they are unlikely to benefit and may even lose from it; and worse still, those below them will be pulled up sufficiently to threaten their status. This is exactly the mindset in the US, where individualist values are more deeply embedded. Americans accepted tax cuts for the rich with equanimity. Better to let the rich keep their money, they calculated, than to have it benefit economic and social inferiors.

and to those who say there's no class system operating in the united states, what are you guys smoking...?

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Dylan Ratigan: Banksters & Government Exposed in Biggest Con & Cover-Up in US History; Madoff: Ponzi Scheme

you want the truth...? can you handle the truth...?

dylan ratigan...

MSNBC - Banksters & Government Exposed FINALLY by Mainstream News!



bernie madoff...

Madoff Says Entire U.S. Government a `Ponzi Scheme'

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Why should our super-rich elites keep sucking us dry and refusing to pay their fair share...?

robert parry writing in consortium news via alternet...

The Solution to Our Budget Problems Is So Obvious: We Need to Raise Taxes on the Rich, ASAP

The answer to many of our country’s domestic problems is obvious -- the rich need to pay their fair share.

[...]

[I]t would seem both fair and logical for the U.S. government to restore the marginal income tax rates on the wealthiest taxpayers at least to levels that existed prior to Ronald Reagan’s presidency. That way the rich could pay back the country for all it has done for them.

fair and logical are not terms that mean the same to our overlords that they do to you and me... fair and logical to them means that they want it all, no if's, and's or but's...

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The UK isn't afraid to ask the banksters to shoulder their fair share, why is the U.S.?

yes, of course, the uk banksters are boo-hooing about how unfair it all is, but, c'mon... they're making all the goddam money, why shouldn't they pitch in in equal measure...

Britain saddled banks with an extra 800 million pounds ($1.3 billion) in tax on Tuesday, drawing protest from the industry as talks between bosses and ministers over bonuses and lending come to a head.

Finance minister George Osborne said he hoped the move would hurry along a deal under the government's Project Merlin, which is designed to encourage banks to lend more and rein in bonuses for top bankers.

"What I am absolutely focused on is two things: One, the banks paying a fair share in tax and making sure that they are contributing to the economic recovery. Second, that they lend to businesses -- that is an absolute priority because that is how we are going to get this economy moving," Osborne said.

The British Bankers' Association said it understood the need to raise money from banks but added that "constant chopping and changing risks making the UK a less attractive place for businesses to operate."

ya gotta love the choice of words - "saddled" - and the banksters' response - "making the UK a less attractive place for businesses to operate"... wah, wah, wah...

now, why can't the u.s. do something similar...? huh...?

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Charles and David Koch each increased his wealth by $5.5B just this past YEAR

and are now worth $21.5B EACH...

meanwhile, a good friend of mine, a man with skills and talent to spare, languishes in joblessness...

robert reich...

The super-rich got even wealthier this year, and yet most of them are paying even fewer taxes to support the eduction, job training, and job creation of the rest of us. According to Forbes magazine’s annual survey, just released, the combined net worth of the 400 richest Americans climbed 8% this year, to $1.37 trillion. Wealth rose for 217 members of the list, while 85 saw a decline.

For example, Charles and David Koch, the energy magnates who are pouring vast sums of money into Republican coffers and sponsoring tea partiers all over America, each gained $5.5 billion of wealth over the past year. Each is now worth $21.5 billion.

Wall Street continued to dominate the list; 109 of the richest 400 are in finance or investments.

From another survey we learn that the 25 top hedge-fund managers got an average of $1 billion each, but paid an average of 17 percent in taxes (because so much of their income is considered capital gains, taxed at 15 percent thanks to the Bush tax cuts).

The rest of America got poorer, of course. The number in poverty rose to a post-war high. The median wage continues to deteriorate. And some 20 million Americans don’t have work.

Only twice before in American history has so much been held by so few, and the gap between them and the great majority been a chasm — the late 1920s, and the era of the robber barons in the 1880s.

why do we put up with this shit...?

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If corporate senior management was truly honest...

they would say that they don't want any employees... employees are fundamental irritants, lazy, no-good, lying, worthless sacks of shit that suck up company resources, generate customer complaints and only serve to reduce the amount of money that could otherwise find its way into the pockets of the execs...

when i worked for united airlines, the not-so-funny joke was that the senior execs were in the eternal search for the airline version of the mcdonald's cash register, something so simple that any idiot could operate it, preferably an idiot that would work for minimum wage and not insist on belonging to a union... if you've flown recently, you can see that, with electronic booking, ticketing, online check-in, and airport electronic check-in kiosks, the airlines have surpassed themselves... the "any idiots" are now us, the passengers... the airline employees are only there to prevent serious meltdowns...

the cartoon below is perhaps the best representation i've seen lately of the realities of organizational life... make no mistake... this reality is not restricted to large corporations, the private sector or the united states... it applies around the world to organizations of all stripes... thankfully, there are exceptions but they are pathetically few and far between...

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$100M worth of bonuses to be paid out tomorrow by AIG

the good news just never stops...

American International Group plans Wednesday to pay another round of employee bonuses worth about $100 million, said several people familiar with the matter, a year after similar payments at the bailed-out insurance giant infuriated many Americans and inflamed Washington.

This week's payments will go only to employees at the company's Financial Products division who agreed recently to accept between 10 and 20 percent less money than AIG had initially promised them years ago. In return, they are receiving their payments more than a month ahead of schedule.

The company is still scheduled to pay out tens of millions of dollars more in March, mostly to former employees who did not agree to the concessions.

but i'm sure they deserve them...

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Hard-core greed porn: $145B Wall Street payout - 18% MORE than last year

obscenity rises to new heights...

In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart tried to explain "hard-core" pornography, or what is obscene, by saying, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it . . . "

well, see THIS...

Wall Street’s payout for 2009: $145 billion

If you still needed statistical proof that the folks on Wall Street have become entirely detached from reality in the wake of the massive taxpayer-funded bailout of their colossal mistakes, here it is.

The 38 largest financial institutions on Wall Street will pay out a total of $145.85 billion in compensation for 2009, an 18 percent increase over 2008 and "slightly more than in the record year of 2007," the Wall Street Journal reports.

(By "slightly," the Journal means a 6 percent increase over 2007, amounting to some $8 billion.)

Contrast this with the state of affairs on Main Street, where average earnings increased 2.2 percent in 2009 -- and that number excludes the 7 million jobs lost since the recession began.

over 1 BILLION people around the world don't get enough to eat... innocents are being slaughtered in afghanistan and pakistan... many tens of thousands are dead or dying in haiti... yet our super-rich elites continue to bleed the world of its riches for their own coffers... every day i say to myself, this cannot stand, and every day it continues to stand...

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Obscene tax breaks on obscene bonuses

these banksters are so over-the-top greedy it fairly boggles the mind...

Along with Wall Street’s resurgent bonuses will come a jump in an ancillary benefit: tax breaks.

For all banks and Wall Street firms, “I’m sure we’re talking $200 billion total compensation, which would create a tax savings for the firms of $80 billion,” said Robert Willens, an accounting and tax analyst in New York who runs a consulting firm, Robert Willens LLC. The figure does not include bonus plans by hedge funds, which are likely to reduce their payouts after a down year.

The tax deductions, which will increase the bottom line of the banks, are perfectly legal and not new. They come as compensation for 2009 has roared back after the largest banks paid back billions of dollars in federal aid, an outlay still fresh in the minds of taxpayers. As pay goes up, so do the deductions.

Many American banks already pay minuscule federal income taxes, because of various deductions and clever tax planning; the payout-related breaks will reduce their tax bills further in coming years.

The biggest tax break will go to Goldman Sachs. It expects to award its employees $23 billion in bonuses — the most in its history — after having paid back $10 billion. Because most employee compensation is a deductible expense under tax laws, Goldman Sachs, which is technically taxed at a top corporate rate of 39 percent, will save about $9 billion in federal income taxes on the bonuses it pays out for 2009, Mr. Willens said.

The tax breaks cover both cash awards and stock options. Banks can generally carry back losses related to compensation two to five years or forward 20 years, depending on when the payouts are made in a given tax year.

the fact that over one billion people around the world are going hungry while these bloated bastards continue to rake in amounts of money that an average person can't even fathom is one shitty way to start off a new year...

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Goldman shareholders get to offer a NONBINDING vote on exec's compensation?

woo-hoo...

Moving to quell the uproar over the return of big paydays on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs announced on Thursday that its top executives would forgo cash bonuses this year and that it would give shareholders a say in determining compensation.

With a resurgent Goldman set to award billions of dollars in bonuses — a trove that could rival the record payouts of the bubble years — the bank said that its 30 most-senior executives would be paid in the form of a special stock, rather than in cash. Goldman said that it would also let its shareholders vote on its executives’ pay, although the decision would be nonbinding.

hold me up and fan me quick... like this is going to "quell the uproar"...? those at the pinnacle of the pyramid, that tiny, elite, super-rich group of flabby-ass white guys who basically set the agenda for the entire planet are worried about "quelling an uproar"...? i think they ought to be worried for their sorry skins...

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Banksters: ‘Quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’

let them eat cake... who gives a shit about the peasants when you can collect a BONUS well over five times the median u.s. household income and, oh, btw, who gives a shit that billions of people around the world are STARVING TO DEATH...?

Three of the largest Wall Street firms -- which together received $45,000,000,000 in taxpayer bailouts -- are on track to hand out $29,700,000,000 in bonuses this year.

That's only the three largest firms. JP Morgan Chase took $25 billion in government aid; Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, $10 billion each. All three have paid back the government bailout money they've received, but the liquidity and "cheap money" offered by the Fed have kindled record profits at their investment and trading arms.

According to analyst estimates published by Bloomberg News, the financial banking triumvirate will shell out $29.7 billion in bonuses this year -- up 60 percent from 2008, and higher than the previous record of $26.8 billion in 2007.

If divided equally among the firms' collective 119,000 employees, the sum total per worker comes to $250,400 each (which Bloomberg notes is almost five times the median US household income of $50,000).

“Wall Street is beginning to resemble Clark Gable as Rhett Butler in the film ‘Gone With the Wind’: ‘Quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,’” Paul Hodgson, a compensation expert, told the wire. “It doesn’t seem as if even political threat, disastrous PR, envy, rising unemployment rates and home repossessions is enough to get any of these people to refuse the bonuses they have ‘earned.’”

what kind of people are these...? after visiting auschwitz-birkenau last week and seeing once again just how monstrous certain elements of the human race can be toward their fellow human beings, is THIS kind of behavior any the less complicit...? just because they're not sitting in watchtowers or manning gas chambers doesn't mean they're not forcing people into misery and death by grabbing such a disproportionate share of the world's resources for themselves... and don't give me any crap about it isn't a sin to be rich... after a certain point, a point well in excess of any reasonable definition of "rich," you're guilty as hell, believe me...

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A lucky star's above, but not for me

these three articles touting the dow breaking 10,000, the just-announced $3.6B 3d quarter profit of jpmorgan chase and the totally obscene bonus payout predictions remind me of the george and ira gershwin song, "but not for me"...

Dow Closes Above 10,000 For First Time In A Year

UPDATED at 4:15 p.m.

The Dow closed above 10,000 moments ago, pushing above a psychological barrier it has not recorded in more than a year.

The Dow briefly crossed 10,000 at about 1:15 p.m. today, then retreated, then punched above 10,000 after 3 p.m. and held on until closing.

and for those of you looking for work, choke on this...

JPMorgan Chase Reports Strong Profit of $3.6 Billion

JPMorgan’s results — $3.6 billion in profit for the third quarter — fanned hopes on Wall Street that the nation’s financial sector was entering a new period of prosperity, despite lingering troubles. The bank’s robust showing, amid tentative signs that its consumer loan losses might soon peak, has set the pace for other big banks that will report results in coming days.

but before you head to the bathroom to retch, be sure to check this...

Wall Street banks in $70bn staff payout
Pay and bonus deals equivalent to 10% of US government bail-out package

Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.

Staff at six banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are in line to pick up the payouts despite being the beneficiaries of a $700bn bail-out from the US government that has already prompted criticism. The government's cash has been poured in on the condition that excessive executive pay would be curbed.

if you're feeling like the victim of a con job that might just be because you are...

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The economy - from the disastrous to the obscene

financial meltdown still lurks...

Wall Street’s biggest banks may be roaring back to life, but trouble still lurks in corners of the financial industry that remain plagued by a legacy of bad investments.

On Friday, Colonial BancGroup, a large lender that rode the excesses of the nation’s real estate boom, was seized by federal regulators, making it the largest bank failure of 2009 and one of the most costly since the collapse of IndyMac Bancorp last year.

Regulators simultaneously brokered a rapid sale of its branches and deposits to BB&T Corporation of North Carolina, a regional bank that has emerged from the financial crisis as one of the industry’s strongest players. The failure is expected to cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation about $2.8 billion.

Regulators also closed four other small banks on Friday in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona, bringing the total number of bank failures to 77 this year. Banking analysts say that the number of failures could easily reach several hundred in the next 18 months as rising commercial real estate losses take their toll.

while obscene bonus payouts fly in formation with taxpayer bailouts...

Senior Obama administration officials were wrestling on Friday with how to handle an explosive executive pay issue involving two traders’ compensation package of nearly $130 million that Citigroup says is exempt from government review.

Citigroup’s decision leaves top White House and Treasury Department officials unable to do much about some of the highest-paid employees at the deeply troubled bank just two months after the administration announced, with great fanfare, the appointment of an official to crack down on lucrative payouts at companies that have become wards of the state.

On Friday, Citigroup, which is facing a government deadline, submitted the pay packages for its 25 senior executives and highest-paid employees. People involved in that process said Citi advised the Treasury that an energy trader named Andrew J. Hall, due $98 million, was exempt from federal review, and so was a second unidentified trader who received more than $30 million.

Mr. Hall, 58, and the other trader were paid under an employment contract signed last October, said a person briefed on the contract who was granted anonymity because of not being authorized to disclose the information. That was before a law went into effect instructing the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, to examine the pay packages of top executives at companies that received exceptional bailout assistance from the government.

a $98M pay package...?!?! unbelievable...!

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Tradesters and banksters continue to enrich themselves ($5B) at our expense

more validation for what we already knew was happening...

Thousands of top traders and bankers on Wall Street were awarded huge bonuses and pay packages last year, even as their employers were battered by the financial crisis.

Nine of the financial firms that were among the largest recipients of federal bailout money paid about 5,000 of their traders and bankers bonuses of more than $1 million apiece for 2008, according to a report released Thursday by Andrew M. Cuomo, the New York attorney general.

At Goldman Sachs, for example, bonuses of more than $1 million went to 953 traders and bankers, and Morgan Stanley awarded seven-figure bonuses to 428 employees. Even at weaker banks like Citigroup and Bank of America, million-dollar awards were distributed to hundreds of workers.

[...]

The report suggests that those roughly 5,000 people — a small subset of the industry — accounted for more than $5 billion in bonuses. At Goldman, just 200 people collectively were paid nearly $1 billion in total, and at Morgan Stanley, $577 million was shared by 101 people.

All told, the bonus pools at the nine banks that received bailout money was $32.6 billion, while those banks lost $81 billion.

where's the outrage...?

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Fuckers (stronger letter to follow)

they're beneath contempt...

AIG Is Preparing to Pay Millions More in Bonuses

American International Group is preparing to pay millions of dollars more in bonuses to several dozen top corporate executives after an earlier round of payments four months ago set off a national furor.

The company has been pressing the federal government to bless the payments in hopes of shielding itself from renewed public outrage.

ya know what...? the average u.s. taxpayer, myself included, is a full-on chump... we're being sheared like the sheep we are...

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Gotta pay top dollar to them all-important senior execs

don't this just rattle your chain a wee bit...?

Sources: Chrysler Financial Refused Government Loan Over Executive Pay Limits
Top officials turned away a $750 million government loan because executives didn't want to abide by new federal limits on pay, sources familiar with the matter say.

boo-freakin'-hoo...

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