Greed is good

From here:

Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most prominent names in the business, employees at financial companies in New York, the now-diminished world capital of capital, collected an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year. That was the sixth-largest haul on record, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York State comptroller.
Many corporate governance experts, investors and lawmakers question why financial companies that have accepted taxpayer money paid any bonuses at all. Financial industry executives argue that they need to pay their best workers well in order to keep them, but with many banks cutting jobs, job options are dwindling, even for stars.

Executive paycheck watch - II

As the investors keeps getting hammered with more bad news (AIG falling under after ratings cut last night, Goldman announced a couple of minutes back that their profits were down 70%, the first time since the company went public, Merrill to see large layoffs, thousands of Lehman workers out on the street), here is a bit of news that looks to the bright side of things...

From here: Merrill Lynch & Co. Chief Executive Officer John Thain and trading-division head Thomas Montag may reap payouts totaling more than $47 million if they leave or are given lesser roles after Bank of America Corp. buys the firm.

The ultimate irony with the whole payout was that John Thain was hired into Merrill nine months back explicitly to turn the ailing company around. Instead, he turns tables and sells the company lock stock to Bank of America (of course, he had no other option after the debacle at Lehman). Yes, greed is good.

The executive paychecks for CEOs who were responsible for sending Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the ground covered here previously.