opinion

The sense of outrage that permeated nearly every announcement of obscene compensation for Wall Street's profligate managers and traders a year ago seems to have faded with the public's anticipation that the worst of the economic crisis is over.

How else can one explain Congress's leaving town for a month without taking action to stop federal bailout recipients from returning to their thrilling days of yesteryear?

The latest bonus figures are enough to give the average taxpayer and besieged homeowner apoplexy, particularly since executives and players from the biggest recipients of public aid are among the most rewarded, according to a report from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

About 5,000 people accounted for more than $5 billion in bonuses. Cuomo said that at Goldman Sachs, which received $10 billion in federal TARP help (since repaid), just 200 people got almost $1 billion, and at Citigroup, which lost $27.7 billion in 2008 and received $45 billion from taxpayers, $5.3 billion was set aside for bonuses that it handed out to 738 of its 322,600 employees.

Does this blow your mind?

Cuomo seems to have this strange idea that as in every other business, bonuses and compensation packages should ebb and flow with profits. But somehow that doesn't hold true on Wall Street.

In the annals of robber-baron audacity, this comes close to being an all-time record, no matter how much hokum comes from the approving boards about hardworking people who might be lost to other institutions. Baloney! Keep in mind that banks like the Bank of America and Citigroup are offering minuscule deposit interest to small investors who are actually losing money on the deal when inflation and taxes are figured in.

At least all those Depression-era gangsters who seem to fascinate us so much used firearms when they robbed us and had the decency not to insult us by offering some lame, patronizing excuse for what they had done.