These guys made a billion dollars for running their companies into the ground

Here's a New York Times article that will make you sick. Go to http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/10/07/business/20080929-payout-graphic.html to read the stats on a group of a dozen Wall Street CEOs that raked in more than $1 billion in pay from their companies. One of the champs is Richard S. Fuld, Jr., of Lehman Brothers, who made a tidy $256,411,839 in take home pay from 2003-2007. Here's what the NYT said about Fuld:

As recently as June 2008, Richard S. Fuld Jr., the chairman and chief executive of Lehman Brothers, said he was confident that Lehman was sound even as the bank posted a second-quarter loss of $2.8 billion, caused by bad mortgage investments. But on Sept. 16, Lehman filed for bankruptcy and began sliding toward an eventual liquidation.

These greedheads should be locked up.

Fuld testified today before the House Oversight and Governmental Reform Committee. At one point in his life, Fuld was worth $1 billion and now has come on such hard times that he and his wife have had to sell some of their prized art collection, which includes three rare works by abtract-expressionist Willem de Kooning.

Again from the New York Times:

Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who heads the panel, began the hearing with an assault on Mr. Fuld’s pay, bringing out a chart showing that the Lehman chief executive received nearly $500 million in salary and bonus payments in the last eight years.

“That’s difficult to comprehend for a lot of people,” Mr. Waxman said. “I have a very basic question for you, is that fair?”