Wall St bonuses spark outrage on Main Street USA

By Steve Eder and Ed Stoddard

NEW YORK/EULESS, Texas (Reuters) - All you have to do to feel the outrage over the continuing flow of bonuses on Wall Street is to take a walk down Main Street.

Reuters reporters spoke to people in half a dozen towns and cities across the country at the end of last week -- and while the survey was far from scientific, it left no doubt many people are upset bankers are still pulling in big bonuses while many people struggle to make ends meet.

Ask Ahmet Rika and his father, Tony, as they work around hot ovens at their family owned pizza and pasta restaurant in Euless, Texas, how they feel about multibillion-dollar bonus pools and their disdain is obvious.

"It's not right," said Ahmet. "All our taxes go to them. It will be bad for the government."

Tony interjected: "They give them this bonus! They must give the bonus to the poor people so they can spend it!" he said as he wiped his hands on his apron, shaking his head in disgust.

In particular there is anger over the fact Wall Street firms are setting aside billions of dollars to reward employees at year-end so soon after the industry needed taxpayers to lend them hundreds of billions of dollars to stay afloat.

Even U.S. documentary maker Michael Moore is tapping into the anger, planning to release his latest movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story." The filmmaker, who aims to show how capitalism is evil and benefits only the rich, stokes the public sentiment by demanding that financial firms repay the billions they borrowed.

The outrage comes at a time when the unemployment rate has reached 9.7 percent, the highest since 1983, and families continue to lose their homes to bank foreclosure at alarming rates.

If left unaddressed it could come back to haunt President Barack Obama who began his time in the Oval Office by condemning massive bonuses for bankers during the financial crisis, but has since become much quieter on the topic.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, spent much of the past month in his home state of Ohio, which has been one of the hardest hit by the recession.

"You need about a day out there to see that people are really angry," Brown said in an interview with Reuters. "Some of this crowd helped to bring down our economy and they don't seem to have learned their lesson. Too many are still given big bonuses for a job that has been bad for our economy.

"We need to dog some of these companies that sort of tend to be dismissive toward the public."

LOST TOUCH WITH REALITY

Goldman Sachs Group Inc and American International Group Inc have been among the poster children for the industry's addiction to massive bonuses.

Soon after receiving $10 billion in taxpayer bailouts, Goldman set aside $11.3 billion for year-end bonuses. AIG paid out $165 million in bonuses to employees who contributed to the company's meltdown.