I just heard on CNN that Bank of America executives are going to be getting 70% raises even though the bank has lost billions, slashed their dividend and been bailed out by taxpayers. This bonus thing is getting ridiculous. Shareholders should be getting this money, not the executives who caused the mess.

If Congress and a zealot NY Att General are going to threaten bonuses with confiscatory taxes or seizure then the Bank needs to find an alternative compensation plan for it's executives.

They need to have competitve wages for their executives or they will lose their top talent to other companies that will pay them at those rates .

I actually think this is a superior method of compensation over the practice of paying bonuses based on short-term performance.

You say that because they were bailed out that should change .But the reality is unless you can put a gun to the heads of these executives and force them to work at below industry standards ,they will leave for greener pastures and BofA will never get out of this .

If executives are paid too much, it's an issue of poor corporate governance, since shareholders shouldn't be willing to pay executives obscenely more than they're worth.
If shareholders are upset about this then their remedy is to actually read the proxy they are mailed ,and vote out the board of directors at B of A.

That is why it would've been better for Chapter 11 reorganizing instead of tax payer bailouts. It should be none of our business what a company pays .

I say that if Congress is so concerned about this then they should set an example and return their pay. They've raped the American taxpayer a lot more than Bof A .

BTW ;did you also see where Bof A .Citi et al are accumulating toxic assets oooops I mean legacy assets in the secondary market, and adding them to their books ,for the purpose of selling them off with the new Geithner guarantee that they can't lose by doing this .

They could be using the taxpayers money to make loans and ease the credit crunch instead of purchasing more of the very assets that got them in trouble . But boy wonder Tim Geithner gave them, with a wink and a nod, the green light to gobble up the cr*p .Now what will happen is Congress doesn't approve the plan ?