Taxpayer bailout of rich CEO's a smashing success

Only 12 months after the meltdown of the U.S. financial system and the ensuing taxpayer-sponsored government bailout, the pay of the nation's top Wall Street chief executive officers (CEOs) is beginning to bounce back to pre-crisis levels, according to a new study on executive compensation released Wednesday. In addition, the pay gap between the typical CEO and the average U.S. worker remains almost as high as ever, with a disparity of 319-to-1. "America's executive pay bubble remains un-popped," said Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the lead author of the study. "And these outrageous rewards give executives an incentive to behave outrageously, putting the rest of us at risk." The report, titled "America's Bailout Barons" and released by IPS, focuses on the compensation received by the 100 top executives at 20 of the top financial institutions propped up by the federal government to help stave off the worst effects of a recession. Together they have absorbed approximately 283 billion dollars of federal bailout funds as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The CEOs of these firms have pocketed an average of 13.8 million dollars in personal compensation - 37 percent greater than the overall remuneration of CEOs on the S&P 500 index, who averaged 10.1 million dollars. Overall, in the three years through 2008, pay packages worth a combined 3.2 billion dollars were given to the nation's top 100 financial executives who averaged 32 million dollars each.