Today our outrage was ticked up a notch or so by reading this, reported by ThinkProgress:

Despite “generous” bonuses, some bankers are “complaining” that “too much of the payout is coming in stock instead of cash.” Banks and securities firms have shifted to stocks to assuage “public anger over the big paychecks,” but “some employees say the shift could leave them short of cash.”

Short of cash? Seriously? Get on a subway and take it to Morningside Heights if you want to see short of cash. Or don’t even go all the way to 155th Street. Stop at East Harlem and just walk around Spanish Harlem and tell me again that you are short of cash. With any luck, someone will slap the spare change out of you and then you really will be short of cash.

I sent an email to my friend DP, querying: “How is it possible that with ten percent unemployment and 17 percent under-employment, the banks are giving out $112 billion in bonuses (this from just six banks, btw) and feel no shame over it?”

Her reply was succinct and bears considering:  “Because Tim Geithner and Larry Summers told them it was just dandy, as did Obama when he appointed Geithner and Summers.”

Too true. Call me gob-smacked. —-VAB