The more things change ...

I liked this Ezra Klein post - that referenced Kevin Drum - on the Dow hitting 10,000 again ...

In the immediate aftermath of the crisis, you heard a lot about how further regulation was unnecessary because Wall Street was severely chastened. We could not do worse to them than they were going to do to themselves, and we shouldn't try. That sure turned out well, at least so far as their compensation goes.

What's weird, too, is that this seems like bad money management. A couple of major firms could have shifted more of their compensation into salaries and away from bonuses and then promised to donate the bonus money to charity so long as America remained in recession. It would have been great press, and done wonders to limit the chances that Congress passes any serious compensation reform. Don't these guys know anything about investing?