Not to defend the banks, but this reminds me of when a company declares bankruptcy and pays its executives bonuses. The argument is always that, no matter how

Not to defend the banks, but this reminds me of when a company declares bankruptcy and pays its executives bonuses. The argument is always that, no matter how flawed the executives' judgment is, it's better to have somebody doing the job than to have the executives jump ship. I'm not sure the argument applies here, since I'm not sure how many companies were hiring executives during the time frame.