BBC NEWS | Americas | Lehman Bros head took home $300m

BBC NEWS | Lehman Bros head took home $300m
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This is the subhead of an article on the BBC News website.

"The head of failed US investment bank Lehman Brothers has told Congress that he took home about $300m in pay and bonuses over the past eight years."

There are other little gems in this article, such as:

"Mr Waxman also criticised Mr Fuld for requesting multi-million dollar bonuses for departing executives just days before last month's collapse."

"In other words," he added, "even as Mr Fuld was pleading with [Treasury] Secretary [Henry] Paulson for a federal rescue, Lehman continued to squander millions on executive compensation."

"To restore our economy to health, two steps are necessary," he said. "First, we must identify what went wrong. Then we must enact real reform of our financial markets."

I can think of a couple of things that might have caused "what went wrong".

And just to show where the American candidates stand on the issue, here is their response:

US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has attacked John McCain's links to a 1980s financial scandal.

He also accused his Republican rival of being more focused on running a smear campaign than on fixing the US economy.
It comes after Mr McCain's running mate Sarah Palin accused Mr Obama over the weekend of associating with terrorists.

Along the same vein, check out this chart in the NYTimes. (HT to Nate)

I could wax eloquent on this, but why waste the bandwidth? I think one of America's greatest philosophers said it best:

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