Outgoing Bank of America CEO, Ken Lewis, won't be receiving any more pay or bonuses in 2009. In fact, he has to repay Bank of America Corporation the more than $1 million he has already earned in his final year on the job. Lewis, 62, decided in late September to retire from his $1.5 a year job with Bank of America.

Even as the rest of the world continues to suffer the effects of the worst economic downturn since the great depression, workers at 23 top investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers and stock and commodities exchanges can expect to be paid $140 billion in pay and bonuses this year.

According to a contract Ken Lewis has with B of A, he is entitled to a $53+ million pension plan after he steps down as CEO of B of A later this year. That equates to an annual pension benefit of $3.5M for the rest of his life.

JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are anxiously drumming on their desks, checking their watches, waiting to be given the all clear to pay back all that government money they never wanted (or needed, mind you) in the first place. They don't like it when government officials, with their lowly six figure salaries, tell them they can't pay their 25 year-old traders $6 million dollars if they feel like it.

AIG is looking to clawback a $490 million endowment and the $27 million in donations already made to charities to pay employee bonuses instead. The New York Post has the details on this underhanded, disgusting move by a company and board that has long been disgraced.

NY Times published resignation letter of Financial Products VP Jake DeSantis to AIG CEO Edward M. Liddy.

AIG CEO tells the congress that he has asked the employees who have received more than $100,000 retention bonuses to do the right thing and return it back. Edward Liddy says that the company heard the American people and some employees have already returned the retention bonuses to return "at least half of those payments." Liddy told the House Subcommittee that "Some have already stepped forward and offered to give up 100 percent of their payments."

Indeed there is such a thing called retention bonus. AIG just created 73 new millionaires by giving them retention bonuses. Isn't this time someone stand up and take some responsibility at AIG instead of slapping the society in its face?

The executive salaries and bonuses are under fierce scrutiny after AIG's outrageous bonuses. Now there is an apparent conflict between what the CEO of Citigroup Bikram Pandit has earned and has told Congress.

President Barack Obama expressed his outrage saying that he has instructed secretary of Treasury Geithner to pursue every leagl action to block the AIG bonuses.

The cynicism of some executives and decision makes has no limit. AIG, the American Insurance Group, which last year received taxpayer bailouts totalling $270 billion said that bowing the government pressure it will lower the salaries of the executive managers.

Just a few days after Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced a bill that would cap executive pay at companies receiving bailout money at the President's salary ($400K), President Barack Obama plans to announce his own pay limit rules.