NYTimes: Troubled Banks, Hugh Bonuses

The federal pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, would be right to reject requests for big bonuses at banks feeding from the public trough.....

Mr. Feinberg must object to gargantuan payouts from banks that would be bankrupt
if not for taxpayers’ money. He should not be deterred by banks’ arguments that they will lose superstars and compromise profitability if they can’t pay lavishly.
The superstars caused the problem with financial wizardry they did not fully understand...

Most broadly, Mr. Feinberg must devise a structure to dissuade bankers from blowing up the economy again. In principle, one would like to see firms pay executives as they saw fit. But banks are different. They gamble with ordinary people’s money. They have proved they can do it extremely destructively.

Bankers’ remuneration was among the main factors behind this destructive behavior, encouraging them to take on dubious bets that provided big short-term returns at the expense of their institutions’ and the economy’s future stability...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/opinion/03mon3.html