Executives, Year-end Bonuses | featured news

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

Executives say legislation to severely tax bonuses may imperil the housing recovery program.

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 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.

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.

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.

Bonuses fell to $18.4 billion from $32.9 billion in 2007, the largest decline ever, but the size of the 2008 bonus pool is still the sixth-largest on record, the state’s comptroller said.