Amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, few issues have sparked more outrage than executives on Wall Street taking home big bucks, even as their companies took risks that sent the country plunging into recession. Just this week, a report from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo revealed that the first nine banks to receive government bailout funds dished out nearly $33 billion in bonuses last year, with 4,800 employees taking home bonuses over $1 million.
According to the CIA's World Factbook, Americas GDP for 2008 was $14.58 trillion dollars. Fox News reported The United States Government and The Federal Reserve have so far pledged & committed $23.7 trillion dollars, an amount that far exceeds the value of everything we produced in this country in 2008. Simply put, the zero oversight bailouts dwarf our U.S. Gross Domestic Product. California Representative Darryl Issa, ranking member of the oversight committee wrote "If you spent a million dollars a DAY going back to the birth of Jesus Christ, that wouldn't come close to just $1 trillion….$23.7 trillion is a staggering figure".