I get the fact that these men (mostly) feel that they should be paid the same amount of money while the company is going though a rough period as they were making when the company was doing well. But the fact remains that without the government largess these same people would be out on the street. It's one thing for a company to have a rough period and pull through, it's another thing for the company to need tens of billions of dollars (taxpayer, in this case) just to stay open.

Of course these Wall Street titans will complain about their lowered compensation…. to them money is everything…. and that's what got them into the failing place they are currently in. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins and it is killing some of these financial companies.

I understand Giuliani's comment- he's a New Yorker and he's thinking about his city. He doesn't care about the rest of the country, where the money is coming from or the bigger picture.