The five largest Wall Street banks doled out a record $39 billion in bonuses last year, according to data collected by the Bloomberg news service. After driving hundreds of thousands of families into foreclosure, causing a financial crisis affecting hundreds of millions, and pushing the US and world economies closer to recession, it appears Wall Street is rewarding itself for a job well done.

All in all, Wall Street wrote off more than $90 billion in bad debt for the year, and the five largest banks saw their profits drop more than 60 percent. Three of the five firms posted losses in the fourth quarter.