Of this amount, around $2 billion was received by the five best-paid individuals, who were also central to creating the highly risky asset structures that brought the financial system to the edge of the abyss: Sandy Weil (built Citigroup, which blew up shortly after he left); Hank Paulson (greatly expanded Goldman Sachs, lobbied for allowing more leverage in investment banks, then moved to the US Treasury and helped save them);
到如今，前五位收入最高的人合共收取了近20亿美元，而他们恰巧也是构建了整个高风险资产架构并险些将金融系统推入深渊的始作俑者：山迪·维尔（建立了花旗集团，该集团在他离职不久后就爆发了危机）、汉克·保尔森（大规模扩展了高盛集团业务并说服国会允许投资银行采取更高投资杠杆，然后又摇身一变到美国财政部赴任去协助拯救这些银行）、安杰罗·莫兹洛（创立美国国家金融服务公司Countrywide financial corp.，是滥发抵押贷款的主要推手），迪克·福德和杰米·卡尼（分别是雷曼兄弟和贝尔斯登的送葬者）。