Andrew Cuomo, the attorney general of New York, has painted the most detailed picture yet of the bonus practices on Wall Street. If you thought the bonus furor was dying down, guess again. According to his report, the nine largest U.S. banks paid $32.6 billion in bonuses in 2008, as they ran up more than $81 billion in losses and accepted billions of dollars in taxpayer funds. 

The report's basic conclusion was that bonuses were only loosely linked to perfomance. It cited three premiere firms for paying out more than their 2008 earnings. Goldman Sachs made $2.3 billion and paid out $4.8 billion in bonuses. Morgan Stanley earned $1.7 billion and paid $4.5 billion in bonuses. J.P. Morgan Chase made $5.6 billion and paid $8.7 billion in bonuses.

The title of the report was "No Rhyme or Reason: The 'Heads I Win, Tails You Lose' Bank Bonus Culture." The report also cited some practices that, despite the industry rhetoric, demonstrated that bonuses were decoupled from actual performance. It suggested Merrill Lynch paid bonuses according to its expectations of what competitors would pay. Critics of the report would rather it had also offered a solution.  

For more:
- here's the Washington Post article 

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