Bankers Raking in the Cash as Workers Lose Jobs, Homes and Access to Education and Health Care

“Competitive compensation practices are integral to retaining and attracting the best talent which is critical to the success of Citi and all its stakeholders.”

So says Citigroup spokeswoman Danielle Romero Apsilos. As Sean has pointed out numerous times on this blog, when they hand over millions to CEO’s their justification is that they won’t work for less but when they cut our wages they argue that we should be expected to work for less. And, if we don’t they’ll do what they have to to force us, including termination and, if necessary they’ll call out the troops.

Standing by its principals Citi has a new banker in its ranks. It has wooed Stephen Trauber over from UBS AG. The Wall Street Journal reports that this is a sign that Citi is regaining confidence after being bailed out by the taxpayer and having its executive compensation scrutinized by the government.

Trauber is expected to get about $30 million and a few other perks over three years. He brought a bunch of his buddies over to Citi with him.

Right after the bailouts, Citi was forced to curb some exec pay. Andrew Hall, one of its top execs was paid $98.9 million in 2008 and there was talk of even more for 2009 but Obama’s pay czar threatened to go public with the claim that such compensation was “against the public interest”. Citi CEO Vikram Pandit, like all of them bowing to the public mood agreed that $100 million for Hall for 2009, “would be excessive”.

Because of the widespread hatred of bankers that intensified after the crash, Pandit took home a “symbolic” $1 salary in 2009. With these thugs though you have to look a little deeper. He had already received $125,000 before making that announcement. He also received a compensation package valued at more than $38.2 million in 2008, this was “as the bank posted five consecutive quarters of multibillion-dollar losses and turned to the government three times for help.” Says the New York Times. Oh, one other detail, Pandit received nearly $80 million from selling his hedge fund to Citigroup in 2007.

Citi is still about one fifth owned by the US taxpayer but we don’t seem to get much say in what goes on there.

It’s clear that not all the public sector is having its wages and benefits cut.