TARP CEOs Make More Money Than Almost Everyone Else

http://www.businessinsider.com/tarp-ceos-make-more-money-than-everyone-else-2009-9

Being the CEO of a bank that got bailed out was pretty rewarding before the crisis.

And even after the government rescue, the rewards to the guy at the top only dropped by one-third.

The top five execs at ten of the top 20 TARP banks have enjoyed a combined increase in the value of their stock options of nearly $90 million in the past year, which is better than being the chief exec at an S&P 500 company. (TARP CEOs' comp is 37% higher than that S&P average.) This suggests, however, that the notion that the executives didn't have "skin in the game" is largely mistaken. They had plenty at stake.

The same set of CEOs also had a three-year pay total of $3.2 billion. But that represents a huge drop. They made $1.2 billion in 2006 and 2007, and last year only took in $800 million. So the crisis and bailout crunched their pay totals by about one-third.

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But hey, according to some, these guys saved the world and deserve it. Never mind the threat to the world was of their own making. This is like paying a firefighter for fighting more fires, while ignoring that he's also the arsonist.