The rich, they're just better than you. Ask them.

While the GOP & Bush Administration did all they could...and keep doing all they can to shit on the blue-collar workers of the UAW...

Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.

The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.

Meanwhile, you may remember the stories about how "out of touch" the Big 3 CEO's were (and then somehow by Bob Corker's logic the UAW) by flying their corporate jets to Washington.

But what of the literal moneyed class -- the one we bailed out with more than 40 times the amount?

Crisscrossing the country in corporate jets may no longer fly in Detroit after car executives got a dressing down from Congress. But on Wall Street, the coveted executive perk has hardly been grounded.

Six financial firms that received billions in bailout dollars still own and operate fleets of jets to carry executives to company events and sometimes personal trips, according to an Associated Press review.

Truly, we live in a "gelded age".

(pic AFP/File/Stan Honda)

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]