Bloomberg: Wall Street Executives Made $3 Billion Before Crisis

[laststeamtrain]

Wall Street Executives Made $3 Billion Before Crisis (Update1)

By Tom Randall and Jamie McGee

Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street's five biggest firms paid more than $3 billion in the last five years to their top executives, while they presided over the packaging and sale of loans that helped bring down the investment-banking system.

Merrill Lynch & Co. paid its chief executives the most, with Stanley O'Neal taking in $172 million from 2003 to 2007 and John Thain getting $86 million, including a signing bonus, after beginning work in December. The company agreed to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. for about $50 billion on Sept. 15. Bear Stearns Cos.'s James ``Jimmy'' Cayne made $161 million before the company collapsed and was sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in June.

Democrats and Republicans in Congress are demanding that limits be placed on executive pay as part of the $700 billion financial rescue plan proposed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO, who received about $111 million between 2003 and 2006, said in testimony to Congress on Sept. 24 that he would accept such limits as part of the plan, after initially opposing them.

``Shareholders and boards should have done something about this a long time ago,'' said Charles Elson, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware in Newark. ``They justified these levels of pay on the idea that they're all geniuses. I think that balloon has burst.''

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aGL5l6xOPEHc

[WestWingEmpty]

1. That's nothing. They are about to get $700 Billion

from all of us.

[OhioChick]

2. Bunch of bloodsuckers. n/t

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

3. Aw but John McLaughlin feels sorry for the guy

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x200988