For bankers, the new year started the way it usually does: with massive, unjustifiable bonuses. The numbers are staggering on their own, but the situation becomes infuriating when you consider the state of the economy. Bonuses given out by major banks and securities firms for 2009 were reported to be a record-setting $145 billion, up 18% from 2008 (Wall Street Journal, 1/14/10).

These bonuses are supposed to be performance-based. If you’re an executive at a bank that does well, you get a ton of cash. If, on the other hand, you drive the global economy off a cliff… you get a bailout and then a ton of cash. Bank of America plans to pay an average bonus of $400,000 (Bloomberg, 2/3/10). For Goldman Sachs, it was $595,000 for performance last year.

These banks stole taxpayer money, against the will of ordinary Americans who overwhelmingly opposed the bailouts, in order to dump the money on the markets at lowered rates to acquire profits and bonuses at breakneck speed. There’s a phrase for this crime: grand theft on a world scale. Instead of a jail cell, these mastermind crooks get millions in bonuses.

Compare this to the pain that the rest of us are feeling. While the bankers spend our money, we suffer pay cuts, speed-ups, layoffs, and foreclosures. Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies found that one in six blue collar workers lost a job in this recession. For all industries, the number is one in twenty. The author of the study said that these numbers match those of the nation as a whole during the Great Depression, where one in six workers lost their jobs and unemployment was over 20%.

Things aren’t expected to get better any time soon, either. Construction and manufacturing jobs are expected to continue to decline at least through 2010 and remain stagnant for some time after that. The economic crisis was caused by an orgy of speculation and greed on Wall Street, yet it’s working people who are paying the price.

The Democrats have made some statements against the bonuses. Obama himself called them “obscene” when anger reached a boiling point in U.S. society against the bankers. Recently, though, Bloomberg News reports that “President Barack Obama said he doesn’t ‘begrudge’ the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein.” Interviews with White House correspondents and Business Week confirm Obama’s warped view.

Also, the policies of the Democrats have paved the way for this crisis. From Clinton’s repealing of the Glass-Steagall Act right up to today, the Democrats have been in lockstep with the Republicans on deregulation.

In the article “Obama’s Big Sellout”, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi writes about the revolving door between the boardrooms of financial institutions and Washington’s halls of power. He reveals: “The President has packed his economic team with Wall Street insiders intent on turning the bailout into an all-out giveaway.” The very people Obama lambasted during his campaign for causing the crisis are now heading up the recovery. These swindlers are now shaping the industry that they will continue to profit from.

Barack Obama has started talking about a tax on the major banks. The tax is supposed to generate $90 billion dollars over 10 years. That’s not even close to what they’re paying in bonuses this year. No matter what Democrats say, taxing a tiny percentage of taxpayer funded profits is not good enough. Workers are sick of paying for the opulent lifestyles of the crooked and disgusting. The Democrats pushed the bailouts, they are allowing this to happen, and as long as we rely on them, we will continue to suffer.

Labor unions are the main organizations we have that can fight for our interests as workers, and we need to link up with other working people outside of unions to fight against corporate greed. It is well overdue for the unions to make a clean break with the Democrats and start running independent candidates as a step towards building a workers’ party. In our view, a representative of the working class shouldn’t take any corporate money and would live on the average wage of the people in their districts. As it is now, Congressmen wouldn’t know the struggles of regular people even if they wanted to. How could they? They represent big business, and they live like it.

For decades we’ve been told that, under capitalism, the brightest and most hard-working people rise to the top. This is echoed when bankers’ bonuses are called “compensation.” The term implies that the people getting it actually earned it. Corporations justify the size of these bonuses, claiming that if they don’t pay them, the “talent” will go elsewhere.

This is the talent that didn’t realize that bubbles burst? The talent that propped up the housing market? Also, where else could they go to get rewarded in millions to destroy people’s lives without accountability? Become lobbyists? Maybe an advisor to a politician? Instead, they should be going to courthouses facing tough sentences.

The banks have not only failed, but also betrayed the public trust. They should be nationalized, but not the way the Republicans and Democrats nationalize them to enable further profit-making. They should be run with a clear mandate to provide for the needs of the majority and democratically controlled by elected representatives of the public, outside the hands of corporate CEOs and the two corporate political parties.

Right now, banks will only lend to people who don’t need it. If nationalized, they could give low-interest loans to people for their homes and small businesses. This way the banks would be run for the public good, not the outrageous lifestyles of the criminally greedy. The politicians can no longer say that workers need to “share the sacrifice,” because the CEOs aren’t sacrificing at all. They’re taking our money and laughing all the way to the bank.