Oh well it seems life isn't fair, imagine how all the employees under him must be feeling. Imagine how all the Lehman employees must feel. Imagine how all the homeowners and investors must feel. It's not as if the heads of these companies should be immune from all the pain.

Can you imagine, a $10,000,000 BONUS. That is like winning the lottery 10x/yr! If the CEO last year earned $161M, how much do these guys earn? Then they have the audacity to ask for bail-outs. Anyone earning over $10M/yr should pay 50% tax. Reform and update the tax code, and take the burden off of the guy trying to feed a family of four on an income of $35K without medical beneifits.

Folks stop the tabulations Thain has been awarded the Schmuck of the Year and is in the running for the Schmuck of the Decade. Thain runs NYX into the ground and then he demands a bonus from mother Merrill. Granted he didn't do the dirtiest of the deeds as he was only present for a relatively short period of time but that only makes the entire episode that much worse. He has a job at BOA and hopefully that'll pan out if not Dr. Doom will move on to another venture. I guess he's jealous of Pandit's ability to sell his toxic waste dump of a fund to Citigroup and then manage to become
CEO. BTW, has anyone figured out exactly what Robert "The Shaman" Rubin does at Citi? He must be some type of corporate talisman or spiritual advisor because it appears that he has no official duties or job title as he is not directly responsible for anything. Thain, Pandit, and Rubin should start a fund. The best thing that ever happened to these guys is that they worked in America during a time in which it required little effort to rob the shareholders blind. Other than that they're not that special. They just have a great deal of money, your money.

Beltway Greg
"Making friends one at a time, the old fashioned way."

Mr. Johnn Thain should be ashamed of himself for asking for a 10 million $ bonus. Let's be real... people are losing their jobs, can't put food on their table and this man is asking for 10 million.
I am glad he came to his senses.

He does not live in the real world....

He understands now.....

God bless the USA....

Shareholders vs public opinion in my book. Most ML shareholders would credit John with saving Merrill. Meaning he saved 24 billion or so in shareholder asset value.

Compared to a lot of the villains in the story, John's actually been one of the good guys. Undiplomatic, yes, a villain, no.

I do not understand how there would be "anything 'fair'" about apying Thain ANY BONUS. How is he being "unfairly punished" by NOT being paid a $10 MILLION "bonus" when he did not do anything to earn such a bonus?

The insanity of those who presume that CEOs should be paid ridiculously exorbitant salraies and bonuses just by virtue of holding a positon of being a CEO, without regard to any significant "achievement", is utterly astounding.

And NONE of the CEOs "deserve" "bonuses" of $10 Million or more. OUr "capitalism" has become skewed and perverted for payment of such sums to "CEO 'employees"" who are are merely "OVERPAID business managers". Where is the "value" commensurate with such compensations?

We must rid our capitalism of these cancerous practices that are robbing the stockholders, and the capital of our corporations. No CEO is "worth this amount of money".

Shareholders should be the only vote in CEO pay and bonus at year end. There was a report on AOL where approximately 3/4 of the votes by shareholders to provide their approval were defeated by the large share blocks. There has to be a reason for defeating the logical solution to avoid CEO theft from shareholders. I believe the directors who are mostly very wealthy are in collusion to approve costly bonuses. 10 Million to a billionaire is peanuts to them, but unattainable to all other employees and shareholders.

It's too bad. that mr. Thain is not get the bonus he requested. This may sound a litle harsh, but I do not think any ceo's should get any compasetion for the year 2009 and 2010. Lets see how they would feel to be not paid just like the many people who are strugling even with the litl amount that are collecting from the uneployment, and perhapes loosing their home. Has anyone seen the ceo's fromfreddie mac and frediemae they ruenid the mortage market and they did notseem to botter tham at all.