More smoke and mirrors for the peasantry, courtesy of Wall Street, this time coming from Citigroup. Remember all that hoopla how banks are making payments in stock almost entirely, and how no Citigroup employee would get more than $100,000 in cash? Well, turns out the stock portion of compensation is just as liquid: it has been revealed that Citigroup employees can sell stock received as part of their bonuses as early as April. Hopefully by then the CNBC watching sheep will have forgotten all about Wall Street's record bonuses year and everyone can get on with their lives.

Dow Jones reports:

One source with knowledge of the situation said bankers would be able to sell the shares on the open market providing shareholders approve the scheme at Citigroup's annual meeting in April.

A source close to Citigroup confirmed that while the cash component of individual bonuses had been capped at $100,000, a large proportion of the remainder of individual awards will be made up of common stock units, which bankers expect to be able to sell following the AGM.

Citigroup declined to comment.

The revelation follows news, first reported by Financial News yesterday, that bankers at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC) will be granted a substantial proportion of the stock component of their bonuses in shares that are due to vest in the short-term - in many cases as early as August.

At this point does anyone not feel like they are taking crazy pills? On one hand we have a Treasury Secretary blatantly refusing to answer any and all questions that disclose that he only worked on behalf of Goldman, and is also saying that he never had a formal recusal, just some flighty verbal agreement with his staff, and on the other we have a banking system that is now generously handing out blue bills left and right to any willing idiot who believes that anything at all has changed on Wall Street, besides the fact that 2009 was the most profitable bonus year for Wall Street's employees, and with this disclosure it appears that all the posturing about bonuses being paid out in stock was total bullshit. Surely this deserves some more histrionics from the president who will read angrily from the teleprompter how Citigroup employees need to hold their bonuses in stock for at least one more day... or else.