The more they take, the less we are inclined to do good work for them.

They need to wake up and smell the impending revolt.

Something tells me that the executives at these financial institutions aren't on the bleeding edge of feeding their children or filling up the gas in their car. To imply that they are living under the same financial hardships and constraints as the average blue-collar worker is a bit disingenuous. I don't see these guys sitting down at the dinner table with the spouse and deciding whether to pay the electricity bill this month or continue to have the "luxury" of a heated home in the harsh east coast winter.

Merryl Lynch did not receive bailout money. What a misleading article.

As public companies, these CEOs were hired to do one thing: improve stock price. And until this year, they did that very-very well.

Whenever a system becomes overloaded in one direction - i.e. focus on the Stock market only - it will collapse on itself and start over.

2008 salaries and bonuses have been established already. When we see the 2009 numbers, that's when we'll know how the corporations have responded to the market.

Just give me half of what they're making and I'll do it. Who cares about your blood pressure when you're making THAT MUCH to fuck up the company?

@bilups: Already did, and FAILED, unfortunately there's too many retards around my area that can't see past the (R) or the (D) next to a candidate's name and vote straight ticket.

Who cares what ideology the competition subscribes to when the current chowderhead is in need of firing anyway? Hell, if the competition turns out to be so bad it's not going to be that long before you can fire his ass too!

We need to get together get out the torches and pitchforks and have us a roast sadly we as Americans just let everyone walk all over us know a days except manish looking woman who walk all over us men and the country to get what they want

The small cars aren't the ones they're really having trouble moving.

This story makes me sick. These "executives" are nothing more than modern day royalty: stealing money they don't deserve.

Makes me jealous, too.

sometimes I wish windows calculator had commas :D

do you feel strange?
walking down the street
this might be your unfortunate day
not proud of your past
you burned a few
now you're cooking
in your own stew

@ADismalScience: Yeah, look how that turned out. TARP's intent may have been to stimulate lending, but they did a shitty job of crossing their Ts and dotting their Is and now the banks are using it to buy up other banks. It's a bailout.

@dtmoore: I'm pretty sure that your math is off on that one:

.1% x 7.8 billion = 7.8 million NOT 78 million

@HogwartsAlum: HID bulbs suck, man. I hear that.

man. what a let down.

Is it too late to become a highly-paid bank exec? Because I'm totally free for the next few weeks...

If it is a public company we should be able to pass laws that tie exec pay to profits or the one I like the lowest paid employee. Lets see which elected crooks will get off the tit and do something good for America and not their reelection fund.

@sega8800:

Ostensibly to lend the money? TARP's purpose is to stimulate lending - it's not some banking welfare program. That's why the consistent characterization of a "bailout" is so laughable.

@dragonfire81: Its a circle jerk (not the band, for you old school punks). CEO's serve on the boards of other companies and approve whatever outrageous salaries they ask for because they get the same treatment in kind. So, even creating a wall between the CEO and the board creates the same results. I say we tax the hell out of any heavy duty salaries/bonuses (cause they won't get lowered) and at least give us peasants schools, better transporatation infrastructure, health care, something.

@cristiana: Lots of "Normal People" work one place while their families live another. I know several people that do that. They have to go where the work is but they don't want to interrupt their families life: kid's schools, friends etc., proximity to extended family, or maybe their families quality of life would drastically decrease near work due to a higher cost of living. So they have a place to stay near work and commute home every weekend. The difference between these people and CEOs is they either commute by driving or fly on commercial airlines.

Yeah, you are correct, and:
$16M out of $700B is only about 0.002%. In the scheme of things, this is really REALLY nothing, so why not PAY me this $16M??

c'mon, seriously. 1 person worth the salary of 500, 1000, 10,000 average workers within a company? that's ludicrous.

well, hopefully everything will fix itself. obviously fund managers aren't raking in the dough these days & it's doubtful that the easy money will return there. & now these packages are exposed for what they really are - bullshit. a huge, smelly pile of bullshit.

How is this news? I thought everyone already knew that executives are very well compensated, sometimes unrightly so such as when they take a perfectly good company and send it careening to the ground with their bad decisions.

More importantly, these figures are mostly, if not all, from last year. The Banking Industry was still in denial about how bad things were. Everyone was saying "things will be better soon." Of course everyone knows now what they should have been doing with some of the money they gave the executives, but hindsight is 20/20.

2008 is probably going to look scandalous as well since everyone still seemed in denial until their compadres started falling one by one; that's when the screaming started. I think 2009 will be the year we really get to see the impact that the bailout has had on America's companies.

. . .and the flashlight I'll have to strap to the front of the car to stand in for the burnt-out headlight I can't afford to replace.

I'm not really sure why they deserve one penny of my tax dollars as restitution, quite honestly.

But still, it really sucks. When you decide to not use a credit card because you're tired of paying these fat-cats fees, the government takes your money anyway and gives it to them.

@ironchef:

So, in that case should we prepare the 20 million graves now, or later?

Boards of Directors are a big part of the problem.

Henry Paulison had this planned all along. Lehman failed for a reason...because Goldman Sach's ex-CEO is driving the bus and can kill the competition from the executive branch.

The bitch of this situation though is that in some cases (not all), that board is appointed by the person that they pay.

of the three mentioned, Merrill Lynch is the only one that was really run into the gutter, and it was basically on his predecessor's watch. i'm not defending their pay, it's excessive, but Goldman just posted it's first ever quarterly loss in a horrible market,so you could argue the CEO's done a good job. You could argue Dimon's done a good job as well. the CEO's people should be grumbling about are at countrywide, wachovia, wash mutual, etc

@cristiana: Always wondered that myself. My dad did the commute thing for about 18 months once (airlines, in coach, every other weekend) because the company needed his expertise and he didn't want to take my brother and me out of school (aged 12 and 8) and move us out of state. We ultimately did, though.

But I'm hard-pressed to believe in an industry like this that they JUST CAN'T find anyone else in NYC who can do the job locally and for less money...

eventually we will chop their heads off with the Madame Guillotine.

The United States of America is dead.

And yeah, they took bailout money - the problem with bailouts is that it puts those that don't take the money into a competitive disadvantage against their rivals who do. So it would have been stupid not to. But that money didn't exactly "save" Goldman.

Also funny how they act like these morons are some kind of demi-gods floating in brain space figuring out complex calculations or something. "They must be driven everywhere in a special pod, in order to maximize their "brain algorythms". PUHLEASE. These guys aren't any smarter than your average college grad, just do a GREAT job of bamboozling people.

"Wah-hey! I have a revelation! I have awoken from my deep sleep to bring you these instructions from beyond: to combat our falling sales, we will fire all of our experienced salesmen, bring in temps and new-hires, cut wages and benefits, and watch sales skyrocket!"

"All hail the master planner!"

Now I understand that these people may have made some bad decisions, but I still don't get why people complain about CEO salaries. If they are paid that much it is because the company board decides they are worth that much.

Look at a company like Merril Lynch. In 2007 they lost 7.8 billion dollars. Now blame or reasons for this aside if a smart CEO can cut losses by .1% thats 78 million dollars he saved the company.

If you look at it this way you can see why these companies will pay these top people to run their companies, it can be a good investment for the board of directors.

I still like the idea that for the auto bailout, every househould should get a free overstock vehichle from one of the big three (like a subcompact, Chevy Aveo or something). That way we feel like we are getting something back, they move stock, and end up generating profit on the mantinence. Of course that would never happen, that's like the idea of the bank bailout resulting in people's mortgages being forgiven.

We give the money, but don't get anything back. Like bad first date.

I love how this article is right above the post about an infulx of shoplifting because people can't afford their basic household supplies at Wal-Mart...