Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/bank-f11.shtml

In an interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, President Barack Obama said he does not “begrudge” the bonuses of Wall Street tycoons Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein, who together were awarded $26 million last week. Bloomberg.com published Obama’s remarks on the bonuses Wednesday in a preview of an interview that will appear on the newsstands Friday. The interview is evidently part of an effort by Obama to placate Wall Street executives who have complained about his occasional exercises in anti-banker rhetoric and his announcement of token proposals to rein in speculative practices by commercial banks and impose a modest surtax on financial firms that received government bailout funds. He went on to make light of the bankers’ pay packages, saying that while $17 million is “an extraordinary amount of money” for Main Street, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.” Baseball players didn't steal the money from the American people with the help of a corrupt government.