Banks, Executives | featured news

Bailed-out banks take notice after Obama adopts hard line with Detroit, forces GM CEO to resign.

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

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.

Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, whose bank received $25 billion in bailout funds from the government, refused to tell CNBC anchor Melissa Francis how the bank is performing this quarter.

"Can you tell me how this quarter is doing for JPMorgan?" Francis asked.

Dimon's brief response: "I can't."

After selling a majority stake in Miami-based City National Bancshares last November, $60 million of the proceeds, out of his own pocket, got handed out to his tellers, bookkeepers, clerks--everyone on the payroll. All 399 workers on the staff received bonuses, and he even tracked down 72 former employees to give them bonuses.

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.

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.