Bank Robbery?

I heard there was a bank robbery last week at the now defunct Washington Mutual. Only this time there was no bandit, it was a real “inside” job. It seems the new chief executive officer of the beleaguered institution saw fit to sign on to his new job three weeks ago with a $7.5 million signing bonus and a guaranteed $11.6 million cash severance package. There aren’t too many people who can get that much out of a failed bank for three weeks work. Alan Fishman received $19 million dollars in “legal” compensation from a failing banking institution now taken over by the government.
My question is, how can such a “theft” occur in the first place? Is corporate greed so profoundly out of step with the rest of the world that such nonsense can be regarded as business as usual? I will give Fishman his due. In his three weeks as CEO, WaMu did launch an aggressive and no doubt expensive television ad campaign aimed at attracting new accounts. Too bad the cost of those ads didn’t come out of Mr. Fishman’s own pocket. Instead they will likely be indirectly paid for by taxpayers who ultimately provide the “guarantees for depositor’s funds” to such institutions.
There is a passage in Proverbs that reads, “The faithful will abound in blessings, but one who is in a hurry to be rich will not go unpunished.” Perhaps many should consider those thoughts good advice for such times as ours.