it's the age-old sin of greed, isn't it? only, their's is more of an outrage than any i've seen before

I don't get it, what exactly do these people do that get them such great salaries? Aren't they basically office managers or is there some special skill that I need to go learn right now so I can be one of these privileged frew?

Umm...Not every CEO was working for a company that took bailout money. And we don't have a debtors prison in this country and there is no law against being greedy. And to add to that, you cannot socially engineer laws so that people will not be greedy, it is part of human nature. You really have no say as to what these people earn per year unless you are a shareholder with voting rights. Other than that, you are just John Q. Public who should mind his own business instead of trying to dictate what someone else should make because your not happy with your own salary. If you are unhappy that these companies are using bailout money in an inappropriate way, then you should be angry with the source of the problem instead of the indirect result. You should focus your anger on the Congress and Senate that approved the bailouts in the first place. Instead, you focus on private citizens who work for a company, never aiming your ignorant wrath about greed and jealousy towards the people you should be angry with. The gov currently spends 1.3 trillion dollars a year. If you think they are spending that money more efficiently than a CEO of a company is, you must live in a dream world. Your populist comments about how greed is bad are thoughtless and incohereant. Social engineering is what got us into this mess (Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac/ Community Reinvestment Act of 1979) and you should put your anger where it belongs. Stop being jealous of what other people have.

Rupert Murdock and Robert Iger pull in their 30 million a year while running companies (Fox, Disney, ABC) that don't pay overtime, pension, or health care to many of their employees - because they say they can't afford it. 30 million each - and their employees can't afford to go to the Doctor.

Interesting idea. How far do we go? Imprision those making more that $50M? $10M? $100K? Where do you draw the line? Who draws the line?

it is not Citi Bank it is now Shitty Bank

These are not the people responsible for our economic meltdown. The congress that forced banks to accept bad loans is the cause of the problem. It put so much bad mortgage paper out there, that it caused a financial meltdown. Mr Obama is one of the people that went into court and forced one bank to make a bad loan, but Barnie Frank and some of his other cronies in the congress started the mess that made investing in mortgages a very high risk thing for anyone to do, but it was covered up and many banks unknowly made investments in these bad mortgages and now the very people who created the problem are crying wolf yet again.

I agree that the bailout money should be paid back if these entities are going to pay huge salaries, but I do not know nor would I fathom a guess about whether or not the employees of these companies can afford to see a doctor. I personally think the employees have health care and do use it. I also see this statement used politically as an argument to get a health care "feel good" program, that at the inception, we can not even fund except to spend money we do not have. Spending money we do not have is never a good idea and is what got our country in trouble in the first place when people bought homes they clearly could not afford. There are a number of lessons to be learned by the American people before we completely destroy our economy. The American taxpayer has a right to a voice in how their money is spent and I do mean the taxpayer.

For P McBride and others who blame Congress:

Risky residential loans are not the sole cause of the banking debacle. Credit default swaps and other risky financial instruments as well as bad commercial loans have played a large part in the economic crisis.

Here is San Francisco, one Billionaire apartment building owner just deeded to USB, 51 building, in lieu of foreclosure. 51 bad, multi-million dollar loans, made to one developer in one city. Multiply by many developers in many cities and the losses are huge. These loans were not made because of the Community Reinvestment Act.

Blaming the democrats in congress for the economic crisis is a very simplistic approach to a complex problem. Your attitude is either born of ignorance of the depth and complexity of the financial crisis or is thinly veiled racism.

first geithner has to throw himslef out. everyone forgets the guy is a tax cheat and he was the author of the AIG contract.

How can I get info on companies that are considered not for profit and still ask for donations.

In response to the question from John. Go to charitynavigator.org and compare charities. It shows you how much of the money goes to administrative cost and so forth. You can compare the same charity in diffrent states and see how one state uses the money more wisely than another state. You can also compare how different charities use their donations.

I agree with the general condemnation of CEO salaries, but be careful when you paint all charities as having excessive CEO salaries. I'm an officer on the Board of Directors for Ronald McDonald House Charities of San Antonio, Texas and do not receive any compensation which is the way it should be. Further we do not have a CEO, simply an Executive Director and reasonably paid staff running three houses - 50 bedrooms for families of hospitalized children who need to be near their children during their hospitalization. Further we have to raise our own expenses since the McDonald Corporation simply supplies $25,000 seed money for a new house, but does not contribute to our continuing expenses.

Right you are, tell it like it is.

You said it all in a nutshell Now will someone who can do something about it listen? I doubt it. And so it goes.

I agree with you....give every workingclass family who makes less than $250K a year a bail out of $2 million dollars. Then, as you say...we would pay taxes...pay off our credit debts, get caught up with our mortgages..buy a car..send our kids to college...start buying a few things..be able to donate some to charity..what do you think about that as an investement in OUR future and our country? Do the math..it would be alot cheaper and more cost effective than giving moneys to the financial wolves that have put us in this position and STILL would have no problems in ripping out the throats of the people i.e. the working class. Time for us to start baring our teeth and biting back