Obama stands by as Wall Street lives it up and the rest of America struggles

A recent report that Citigroup and Goldman Sachs may have received preferential treatment getting doses of the swine flu vaccine was enough to give Ebenezer Scrooge the yips. Then came news that in order for us to get back the taxpayer bailout money we loaned it, Citigroup is receiving billions of dollars in tax breaks from the IRS.

And there’s a new study this week, “Rewarding Failure,” from the public interest group Public Citizen, revealing that in the years leading up to the financial meltdown, the CEOs of the 10 Wall Street giants that either collapsed or got huge amounts of TARP money were paid an average of $28.9 million dollars a year.

In 2007, that amounted to 575 times the median income of an American family. Now, thanks in part to the banks’ monumental malfeasance that led to our economic swan dive, food stamps are now being used to feed one in eight Americans and a quarter of all the kids in this country. A new poll from the New York Times and CBS News reports that more than half of our unemployed have borrowed money from friends and relatives and have cut back on medical treatments. The Times wrote, “Joblessness has wreaked financial and emotional havoc on the lives of many of those out of work … causing major life changes, mental health issues and trouble maintaining even basic necessities.”

Yet according to the nonprofit Americans for Financial Reform, the reported $150 billion that Wall Street is paying itself in compensation and bonuses this year would be enough to solve the budget crisis of every one of the 50 states or create millions of jobs or prevent all foreclosures for four years.

via Bank Bailouts – Salon.com.