Remember this? 12/2006 - "It's a Wall Street bonus bonanza"

It's a Wall Street bonus bonanza

12/20/2006 9:34 PM ET
By Greg Farrell, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — Executives at Wall Street's top financial firms will probably remember this holiday season with particular fondness, as soaring profits cascade down to traders and bankers in the form of multimillion-dollar bonuses.

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As a reward for Goldman's blockbuster performance, CEO Lloyd Blankfein received a staggering bonus of $53.4 million this week, the largest ever granted to a Wall Street CEO. Joining Blankfein in the bonus stratosphere is Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, who got $40.2 million last week. Lehman CEO Richard Fuld got a seemingly modest $10.9 million bonus earlier this month. But don't shed any tears for him: Fuld also received a 10-year stock payout worth $186 million.

All told, this year's bonus pool for Wall Street executives hit $23.9 billion, the New York State Comptroller's office estimates. That's a 17% jump from last year's bonus pool of $20.5 billion, and it works out to an average bonus of $137,580 for every person employed in the financial services industry.

But few will receive bonus checks for the average amount. Instead, the top executives at these firms and their most successful traders will get bonuses north of $10 million each, while the underperformers and support staff will receive far less than the average.

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"There's a disconnect between the economy and the financial system," says Richard Bove, who tracks the financial services industry for Punk Ziegel. "Income has to be generated somewhere. The financial sector has taken on a life of its own not connected to what's going on in the economy and, ultimately, that has to be addressed."