Good times on Wall Street - $117.6 billion set aside for bonuses

$117.6 billion set aside for bonuses
Yes, you read that correctly.

And the year isn't even over yet. Yes, lessons learned starting with "let them rot and go bankrupt next time." As important as the Wall Street bailout was for preventing a much worse recession, any possibility of future assistance has been wiped out with this excessive greed. Playing Mr. Nice Guy with Wall Street is never good policy.

Critics say it is also a sign that banks have learned few lessons from last year's financial crisis, which has been widely blamed on Wall Street's pursuit of short-term profits that pumped up pay.

"Banks don't appear to have learned much, at least on the compensation side, from what we've been through," said Cornelius Hurley, director of the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law at Boston University. "Don't tell me you are bringing me back to the good old days of yesterday. Getting back to pre-Bear Stearns or Lehman is not fixing it. It is setting us up for another fall."