Three Months of Work, $25 Million
Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain didn't collect a bonus—his request for $10 million quickly turned into a PR disaster—but the same can't be said for some of the execs Thain recruited to the firm. Peter Kraus, who joined the bank in September, resigned last week after the sale of Merrill to Bank of America triggered a $25 million bonus payout, which the Journal helpfully points out, comes out to 0.1 percent of the total amount ($25 billion) BofA collected from American taxpayers as part of the bailout. An even more mind-numbing calculation: Kraus collected roughly $277,000 for every day he worked at the firm. [WSJ]