Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, GS, MS Lehman Bros paid $33bn in bonuses last year

Reading this article from Bloomberg you can see that it makes sense to cap the compensation of the people who work for banks whose bad loans get bought by the US taxpayer.

The five biggest — Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Merrill, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns — paid their 185,687 employees $66 billion in 2007, as problems with subprime mortgages mounted, including about $39 billion in bonuses. That amounts to average pay of $353,089 per employee, including an average bonus of $211,849. The five firms had combined net income of $93 billion during the five years through 2007.