Even more revolting Wall Street bonus news

From the business page of today's New York Times...

For nearly 700 lucky Merrill Lynch employees, 2008 was a million-dollar year, even though the brokerage firm lost $27 billion.

On a day the chief executives of eight large banks were questioned about their industry’s excesses on Capitol Hill, Andrew M. Cuomo, the attorney general of New York State, raised hackles by disclosing how Merrill Lynch distributed its 2008 bonus pool. The payments, made just before Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America in December, have already stirred anger for being paid earlier than usual. And Mr. Cuomo made it clear that the bulk of the bonuses were paid to a small portion of Merrill Lynch’s 39,000 employees.

“Merrill chose to make millionaires out of a select group of 700 employees,” Mr. Cuomo wrote in the letter, which was sent to the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday night.

Mr. Cuomo and others have criticized Merrill for moving up the bonus payments to December, just before shareholders approved the merger, instead of the usual time in January. John A. Thain, who as Merrill’s chief executive helped orchestrate the firm’s sale to Bank of America, was ousted from the combined company last month, largely over the bonus controversy.

For its part, Bank of America has acknowledged that it was fully aware of the amounts and timing. In fact, the bank persuaded Merrill Lynch to reduce the size of the bonuses. But in a statement Wednesday, the bank said: “Although we had a right of consultation, it was their ultimate decision to make.” However, several people involved say the bank signed off on the bonuses.

As part of his investigation into the matter, Mr. Cuomo has subpoenaed several executives from both Merrill and Bank of America, including Mr. Thain and J. Steele Alphin, Bank of America’s chief administrative officer. Kenneth D. Lewis, Bank of America’s chief executive, is likely to receive a subpoena as well.

If that $3.6 billion had been evenly disbursed among Merrill’s work force each person would have received about $91,000. Instead, the top four bonus recipients received a total of $121 million, Mr. Cuomo wrote.

Well isn't that special. And guess what? They're about to get handed an assload more taxpayer money without any caps on executive pay or bothersome regulatory requirements in the new stimulus package thingie, as Maureen Dowd reported on Wednesday...

(Treasury Secretary Timothy) Geithner won an internal battle with David Axelrod and other Obama aides who wanted to impose pay caps on every employee at institutions taking the bailout and set stricter guidelines on how federal money is spent. Geithner prevailed over those who wanted to kick out negligent bank executives and wipe out shareholders at institutions receiving aid.

In a move that would have made his mentor, Robert Rubin, proud, Geithner beat back the populists and protected the economic royalists. The new plan offers insufficient meddling with Wall Street, even though Wall Street shows no sign that the hardscrabble economy has pierced its Hermès-swathed world.

Geithner is wrong. The pay of all the employees in bailed-out banks, not just top executives, should be capped. And these impervious, imperial suits who squander taxpayers’ money after dragging the country over the cliff should all be fired — preferably when they come to D.C. on Wednesday in a phony show of populism on Amtrak and the shuttle to testify before Barney Frank.

Wall Street cannot be trusted to change its culture. Just look at the full-page ads that Bank of America (which got $45 billion) and Citigroup (which got $50 billion) are plastering in newspapers, lavishing taxpayer money on preening prose.

We don’t want our money spent, as Citigroup did, to pat itself on the back “as we navigate the complexities together.” Bank of America cannot get back our trust by spending more of our cash to assure us that it’s “getting to work” on getting back our trust.

Just get back to work and start repaying us.

Good luck with that.