At banks that have fared well over the last year, the bonus season will be doubly sweet. A lot of attention has been paid to the gargantuan bonus pools that are being amassed at the likes of Goldman Sachs (GS) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM). The New York Times makes the obvious point that these massive payouts will come with a cherry on top in the form of more valuable stock options granted the year before. Back then, the industry bowed to pressure to pay more bonuses in stock.

Goldman Sachs paid half its nearly $5 billion bonus pool in stock. The stock has since soared, effectively boosting the value of those bonuses to about $8 billion. At JPMorgan Chase, the value of the last year's bonuses have similarly increased. Now this is not likely to be seen as controversial. In fact, the whole point to some extent was to incent employees to get their stock moving north. But it certainly highlights the diverging experiences between banks that got off the dole and banks that have yet to pay back their TARP funds. 

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