Dunno about the US, but in the UK it doesn't seem right that certain banks here who have begged for and received large sums of taxpayers money to shore up the consequences of blatant profiteering, are now using some of that money intended to cover their bad debts, to pay staff bonuses. Staff who have presided over losses.
Regardless of what 'contracts' were in place before, taxpayers money should not be used for that. An honest company ought at least to consider the idea of freezing bonuses until it is no longer reliant on taxpayers bailouts. To an outsider it just looks plain greedy. It really ought not to be left to a government to impose tax levies on bonuses. Given the state of some of these companies I'd have thought they'd be inclined to organise themselves better in that respect; but I guess that's not how business works.
Apart from anything else it looks like no matter what you do in these particular industries, be it a sterling job or an utter shambles, you still get the payout, regardless of success or not.
I know several companies I have worked for in the past have tried to persuade staff to take pay cuts when times were bad and yet when things picked up again there was very little in the way of reinstating salaries to their original level. And when that doesn't work, they make people redundant
All aboard the gravy train!
It all looks very messy to me, but perhaps that's the idea?