At rescued banks, perks keep rolling

[AllentownJake]

NEW YORK -- Even as the nation's biggest financial firms were struggling and the federal government was spending hundreds of billions of dollars to save many of them, the companies as a group were boosting the perks and benefits they pay their chief executives.

The firms, accounting for more $350 billion in federal bailout funds, increased these perks and benefits 4 percent on average last year, according to an analysis of corporate disclosures filed in recent months.

Some chief executives, such as Kenneth D. Lewis of Bank of America and Jeffrey M. Peek of CIT Group, the major small-business lender now on the brink of bankruptcy, each received about $100,000 more than a year earlier for personal use of corporate jets. Others saw an increase in the value of chauffeured services, parking or personal security.

Ralph W. Babb Jr., chief executive of Dallas-based lender Comerica, was compensated for a new country club membership, with an initiation fee and dues of more than $200,000. GMAC Financial Services chief executive Alvaro de Molina benefited from a $2.5 million payment from his company to help cover his personal tax bill.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/19/AR2009101903546.html?hpid=topnews

[saracat]

1. Meanwhile cc rates go up,unwarranted fees are attached,

and mortgage bailout money continues to not be distributed. Heck of a job with the banks , Brownie!

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. The only rational response is to put money in a credit union or a smaller

local bank. That is the ONLY response that these guys would understand.

When did publicly held companies become the personal cookie jars of their executives? Listen stockholders - those are YOUR DIVIDENDS going down the drain to pay for these excesses! If you're ok with that then you deserve to see these stocks sink like stones since there is apparently no responsible judgement at the top. BODs and executives massage each other at the expense of the stockholder Stockholder outrage would be the only other message they would get.

[AllentownJake]

3. Kick

[OhioChick]

4. Sickening. K&R n/t