What to make of CEO compensation at top banks? On one hand, regulators have weighed in with new rules and guidelines, which emphasize deferral of compensation, clawbacks, proper incentives and alignment of shareholders' interests with executives' interests. Presumably, all compensation plans have been stamped with some sort of good housekeeping seal, as all were vetted by the Fed. Heck even the special master for Wall Street pay, Kenneth Feinberg, has moved on to another job.

But Breakingviews concludes that "compensation for bank chief executives is creeping back to the bad old days." After two years for restraint regarding top executives' pay,  some seem to have opened the spigots again.

"Brian Moynihan's pay package looks the most egregious: the Bank of America boss took home $10 million despite presiding over a $243.6 billion loss and negative total return of more than 11 percent. Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein raked in 40 percent more than he did in 2009 even though earnings tumbled by the same quantum and total return was a piddling 2.5 percent. And while Barclays' earnings from core operations increased by almost a third, new chief Bob Diamond's 9 million pounds of total comp far outpaced that rate."

As for JPMorgan, CEO Jamie Dimon had a "20 percent bonus bump while the stock was essentially flat and the firm's net income jumped by nearly half. Strip out lower credit costs though and the bank's core earnings actually dropped by 14 percent."

The boards no doubt took into account earnings and stock price movements. The pay--salaries and incentives--do not necessarily seem outsized if you buy that the CEOs deserve credit for steering firms through the crisis and restricted stock and options as incentives for pushing the banks to new levels of prosperity in coming years. What we'd all like to see is more disclosure of the theory behind the grants and relevant formulas.

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