Misuse Of Bailout Money, Executives | featured news

A top executive at troubled insurer AIG publicly resigns and says he will donate his entire bonus to charity.

The House of Representatives is expected to vote Thursday on legislation to try to recoup bonuses paid to Wall Street executives with taxpayer money.

The chief executive officer of failed insurance conglomerate AIG acknowledged Wednesday that the company's multimillion-dollar bonuses were "distasteful" to many and had provoked a firestorm of wrath.

The New York attorney general's office on Wednesday subpoenaed seven former Merrill Lynch & Co. executives as part of its ongoing investigation into the timing of year-end payments made to executives at the investment bank.

A provision buried in the stimulus bill would impose restrictions on executive bonuses at companies reaping bailout money.

Wall Street bankers, with their $18 billion in bonuses, private jets and gaudy conferences, are causing headaches for the GOP.

President Obama has proposed capping compensation for executives at banks that take taxpayer bailout money at $500,000. Republicans hate the idea, which puts them uncomfortably on the side of people currently about as popular as child-porn producers and subprime mortgage brokers.

President Barack Obama issued a withering critique Thursday of Wall Street corporate behavior, calling it "the height of irresponsibility" for employees to be paid more than $18 billion in bonuses last year while their crumbling financial sector received a bailout from taxpayers.

At banks that are receiving federal bailout money nearly nine out of every 10 of the most senior executives from 2006 are still on the job, according to an Associated Press analysis of  documents.