And now, with the economy still deeply depressed, the industry is paying itself gigantic bonuses.
A lot has been said and written, for instance, about the corrupting effects on Wall Street of gigantic bonuses.
When a broken-down bailout recipient like Citigroup tries to pay its top executives gigantic bonuses or to acquire a new private jet, it has failed to consider the optics.
Union leader Brendan Barber wasted no time in branding JP Morgan's pay plans as "obscene", saying: "Banks are meant to support society, but instead taxpayers support guarantees that, whatever happens to the economy, banks will continue to pay gigantic bonuses".
Cynics who have watched the wealth creation at Goldman might think that the program is little more than a public relations effort to mask the gigantic bonuses it is expected to pay out starting in early December (to be paid next year).
Bank bosses who get gigantic bonuses for making gigantic bets will make them, especially if they suffer no pain when the bets go bad.
Then they paid themselves gigantic bonuses during and after the crash.
Weill created the business model that Wall Street uses to this day -- unleashing traders to make big, risky bets with other peoples' money that deliver gigantic bonuses when they turn out well and cost taxpayers dearly when they don't.
Or, rather, we used the deal as an excuse to examine ABI's gigantic $2.5 billion bonus package for its 40 most senior executives.
A lot of that money, by the way, went to gigantic banker bonuses, and bankrolled an army of lobbyists who have tirelessly worked to ensure that loose regulation, grotesque leverage ratios, and anemic oversight remains the order of the day.
