Big Bonuses at Bailed-Out Banks Got You Down? Move Your Money

In the first nine months of 2009, Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley -- all beneficiaries of various government bailouts and the Fed's easy money policies -- collectively set aside about $90 billion for compensation, according to The New York Times. At Goldman Sachs, the 2009 bonus pool is expected to approach the record $20.2 billion the firm paid out in 2007.

Other than gnashing your teeth, writing your Congressman or buying a pitchfork, there's another potential cure for the bonus blues: Move Your Money.

A new grassroots campaign seeks to encourage Americans to move their money from the "too big to fail banks" (the five listed above plus Wells Fargo) and into community banks.

The movement is being spearheaded by HuffingtonPost.com founder Arianna Huffington and Rob Johnson, director of Economic Policy Initiative at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, who write: "It's time for Americans to move their money out of these reckless behemoths. And you don't have to worry, there is zero risk: deposit insurance is just as good at small banks -- and unlike the big banks they don't provide the toxic dividend of derivatives trading in a heads-they-win, tails-we-lose fashion."

Johnson, a former managing director at Soros Fund Management, joined Henry and me to discusses the Move Your Money campaign and related issues.

"I think society after the crisis expected repair and reform, and $400 million of lobbying expenditures inhibit[ed] derivatives reform and ‘too big to fail' reform," Johnson says in the accompanying clip. "People should move their money so they can feel good about themselves and feel like they're doing something to tell the banks...lobbying against derivatives reform is bad."