How the Mighty Banking CEOs Have Fallen, Sort Of

Thanks to Kenny the Pay Czar Feinberg, many big banking CEOs such as Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein, JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon and Citi's Vikram the One Dollar Pandit took major pay cuts last year. However, as Bloomberg points out, there were more than a few major banking chiefs who had huge years in 2009.

Wells Fargo's Johnny Tree Stumpf, for one, banked $21.3 million, more than twice his take-home pay in 2008. In addition, a handful of CEOs whose firms have yet to pay back their TARP funds were given raises in pay last year.

Even so, Feinberg is pleased with his efforts, saying that the cuts that Blankfein, Dimon, Pandit and others incurred "demonstrates better than anything the political impact of what I’m doing." The P.C. is also quite joyous about the overall figures: "Average compensation for the Finance 50 CEOs fell 21 percent in 2009, to $8.95 million from $11.4 million a year earlier, according to Bloomberg data. That follows a 19 percent decline from 2007, when average compensation was $14.1 million."