I just threw up into my mouth, reading this article. Not only are the executives of failed banks earning billions of dollars in bonuses, just as much as the early 2000s, but if their income is capped at $500,000… they might need to consider public schools.

I have only one word for these people: guillotine. It’s either that, or move to another community… or, you know what? Maybe if they’re not willing to earn a measly $500,000 for their disastrous management, someone else is willing to do a better job for less money?

Bankers haven’t done much in recent months to earn sympathy, respect, or trust. By parlaying taxpayer-funded bailouts into bonuses, they have lost all credibility. Not only should they lose their salaries, but they should lose their heads. Again, “guillotine.”

Give up the nanny? Oh noes! Apparently, hot chocolate costs $8.50 when you’re a fucking millionaire. Oh noes! Whatever shall I wear to the gala ball? Here’s a hint: maybe you’ve just been fired, even without realizing it yet, for doing the most damage to our financial system in nearly a century. The gala ball is officially not yours to worry about, anymore.

Save yourselves, leave the armed limo driver behind. I just schadenfreuded all over myself.

RTFA: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/fashion/08halfmi…

PRIVATE school: $32,000 a year per student.

Mortgage: $96,000 a year.

Co-op maintenance fee: $96,000 a year.

Nanny: $45,000 a year.

We are already at $269,000, and we haven’t even gotten to taxes yet.

Five hundred thousand dollars – the amount President Obama wants to set as the top pay for banking executives whose firms accept government bailout money – seems like a lot, and it is a lot. To many people in many places, it is a princely sum to live on. But in the neighborhoods of New York City and its suburban enclaves where successful bankers live, half a million a year can go very fast.

“As hard as it is to believe, bankers who are living on the Upper East Side making $2 or $3 million a year have set up a life for themselves in which they are also at zero at the end of the year with credit cards and mortgage bills that are inescapable,” said Holly Peterson, the author of an Upper East Side novel of manners, “The Manny,” and the daughter of Peter G. Peterson, a founder of the equity firm the Blackstone Group. “Five hundred thousand dollars means taking their kids out of private school and selling their home in a fire sale.”