Yet somehow, it’s OK to pay $130 million to two people. Maybe I just don’t understand the newfangled, fancy-schmancy accounting methods of Wall Street but it strikes me as unthinkable to even ask for exceptions to the bonus limitations when the company is in such a position. When a business is broke, it’s broke, right? Not unless your people saturate Treasury and play golf with the President. Does fairness register at all with anyone on Wall Street? Or the White House? Do they all think that people in the rest of the country find this acceptable? Sadly, it doesn’t appear as they they care. Reuters:

Fox-Pitt Kelton expects Citigroup to face another $44 billion in loan losses over the next 18 months, but said the embattled bank’s capital is now strong following the “painfully dilutive” preferred conversion. Citi received $45 billion of bailout money from the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, and the government now owns a 34 percent stake in the company. “We are not modelling in write-downs in problem securities, given recent stability in prices,” analyst David Trone wrote in a note to clients Monday.