NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo released his report on bonuses at the TARP Top 9. At these firms alone, over 800 people made north of $3 million in 2008. That’s a lot of scharole. See Appendix B for the bonus breakdown at each bank.

The key info is in one particular table, however:

(Click to enlarge in new window)

The columns to the right list the number of employees that received bonuses in excess of $3 mil/$2 mil/ $1 mil.

Banks that are still sitting on their TARP money (Citi, BofA, Wells among them) have no business paying out big bonuses before paying back the government. For that matter, neither do the others, who all continue to benefit from FDIC guarantees on debt and Fed lending facilities through which they’ve traded toxic loans in exchange for perfectly liquid Treasuries. They can use the Treasuries for repo collateral, get cash and then put that on deposit at the Fed where they now get paid interest on their excess reserves. It’s a great scam. One that feeds lots of cash into the 2009 bonus pool.

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Cuomo Bonus Report 7.30.09