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Paid Testimony

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What’s a day’s pay for being spanked by Barney Frank? If you’re Lloyd Blankfein, about $250,000.

The C.E.O.s of eight major banks were lined up in Congress today for questioning about TARP funds. (If you’re dying to hear seven hours of grandstanding and technoblather, C-SPAN has video. The WSJ amusingly live-blogged it.) As the House Finance Committee hearings droned on and on, I started wondering about salaries—specifically, how much the C.E.O.s were being paid to get grilled. (Though they often looked more comfortable than the politicians.)

To figure it out, I grabbed numbers from Forbes’ most recent C.E.O. compensation list and used them to calculate hourly wages (with 50-hour weeks and four weeks off a year).  I multiplied the hourlies by seven. Rough calculation? Definitely. Enlightening? You bet.

The only one not included is Citigroup C.E.O Vikram Pandit, since he proclaimed today that he would take just $1 in salary and no bonus until his bank is profitable again. “I get the new reality,” he said. Well, that makes one of them.

Goldman Sachs C.E.O. Lloyd Blankfein
2007 compensation: $73.72 million
Hourly pay: $35,104
Today’s total: $245,728

J.P. Morgan C.E.O. Jamie Dimon
2007 compensation: $20.68 million
Hourly pay: $9,847
Today’s total: $68,929

State Street C.E.O. Ronald Logue
2007 compensation: $20.57 million
Hourly pay: $9,795
Today’s total: $68,565

Bank of America C.E.O. Ken Lewis
2007 compensation: $20.12 million
Hourly pay: $9,581
Today’s total: $67,067

Morgan Stanley C.E.O. John Mack
2007 compensation: $17.65 million
Hourly pay: $8,405
Today’s total: $58,835

Bank of New York Mellon C.E.O. Robert Kelly
2007 compensation: $14.05 million
Hourly pay: $6,690
Today’s total: $46,830

Wells Fargo C.E.O. John Stumpf
2007 compensation: $12.84 million
Hourly pay: $6,114
Today’s total: $42,798

Tags: bailout, CEOs, economy, News, politics, TARP