Wall Street's Bailout Hustle : Rolling Stone

Wall Street's Bailout Hustle : Rolling Stone:

Goldman wasn't alone. The nation's six largest banks — all committed to this balls-out, I drink your milkshake! strategy of flagrantly gorging themselves as America goes hungry — set aside a whopping $140 billion for executive compensation last year, a sum only slightly less than the $164 billion they paid themselves in the pre-crash year of 2007. In a gesture of self-sacrifice, Blankfein himself took a humiliatingly low bonus of $9 million, less than the 2009 pay of elephantine New York Knicks washout Eddy Curry. But in reality, not much had changed. 'What is the state of our moral being when Lloyd Blankfein taking a $9 million bonus is viewed as this great act of contrition, when every penny of it was a direct transfer from the taxpayer?' asks Eliot Spitzer, who tried to hold Wall Street accountable during his own ill-fated stint as governor of New York.

With thanks to Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture