With the new law's namesake, Lilly Ledbetter, at his side, President Obama signed his first piece of legislation on Thursday, Jan 29, 2009 in the East Room of the White House-- to combat pay discrimination.

Greed Incorporated: On Thursday, President Barack Obama said it was irresponsible and shameful for Wall Street bankers to be paid huge bonuses at a time when the American public is dealing with economic hardship.

The President was reacting to reports that cash bonuses paid by Wall Street firms to their New York City employees were $18.4 billion in 2008 - - the sixth-largest haul on record.

"When I saw an article today that indicates that Wall Street bankers had given themselves $20 billion worth of bonuses, the same amount of bonuses as they gave themselves in 2004, at a time when most of these institutions are teetering on collapse and they are asking for taxpayers to help sustain them, and when taxpayers find themselves in the difficult position that if they don't provide help then the entire system could come down on top of our heads, that is the height of irresponsibility,"President Obama told reporters.

"It is shameful."

Obama said he and new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will have direct conversations with corporate leaders to make the point.

The President said there is a time for corporate leaders to make profits and get paid bonuses but now is "not that time."

"You're never going to get any support for the continued tough decisions we have to make if this kind of behavior continues,"he said.

On an instruction to Citigroup to cancel an order for a $50 million executive jet, Obama said:"Secretary Geithner already had to pull back one institution that had gone forward with a multi-million dollar jet plane purchase at the same time as they're receiving TARP money. We shouldn't have to do that because they should know better. And we will continue to send that message loud and clear."

Last week, the ousting of Merrill Lynch's chief, John Thain, highlighted the air of unreality, which continues to prevail on Wall Street, which is currently essentially a custodian of the federal government.

CNBC Slideshow on Thain's $1.2 million office makeover: Decorate Like John Thain for Less

Despite Merrill Lynch incurring a loss in the fourth quarter of $15 billion, Thain wanted a $10 million bonus.

Thain, a hired hand, made several hundred million dollars while working at Goldman Sachs.

When Stan O'Neal was fired as CEO of Merrill Lynch in late 2007 and given a golden boot worth $162 million, Thain, then CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, got a signing on bonus of $15 million. His annual earnings at Merrill were expected to be at least $50 million per year and he could have been paid as much as $120 million a year, based on the company's stock price.

Thain's chauffeur at the embattled Merrill, was paid $230,000 annually.

The sense of entitlement, while benefitting from a boom, has few limits.

The classic case of the hired hand who ends up with a spectacular bonanza is Richard Grasso, who was ousted in September 2003, as Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, following revelations that he had accrued $139.5 million in deferred salary and retirement benefits. The compensation committee members who had nodded through the extravagantly generous package, were wealthy representatives of New York's biggest investment banks.

Thain got Grasso's job.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Aer Lingus’ CEO Dermot Mannion had been granted what Ryanair's Michael O'Leary termed: "an indefensible and unprecedented" €2.8 million lifeboat ‘Failure Bonus’, if Aer Lingus had a change of ownership. The Aer Lingus Chairman Colm Barrington is reported to have said, the arrangement was "perfectly normal."

Perfectly normal?

It's very simple. Use the excess of corporate America as the excuse.

We live in an age when the cult of the leader is ever-present. From sporting heroes to fictional leaders in blockbusting films to business chiefs, all such leaders have characteristics in common: they are risk takers; they create a vision that others want to follow; they keep going where others would stop; they are decisive. I could go on.

Yet as consultant Dr Michael Hammer has argued at length, most corporate leaders are nothing like this. They are stewards not change agents, administrators not leaders. The culture of too many businesses is too often the opposite of what they portray.

Most CEO's prefer deal-making and mergers to boost short-term share price to the hard grind of managing their companies. There is no shortage of able people eager to do the job.