That's Billion with a B...

From the New York Times:

Thousands of top traders and bankers on Wall Street were awarded huge bonuses and pay packages last year, even as their employers were battered by the financial crises.

All told, the bonus pools at the nine banks that received bailout money was $32.6 billion, while those banks lost $81 billion.

Some compensation experts questioned whether the bonuses should have been paid at all while the banks were receiving government aid.

Ya think? I feel like I stumbled into Alice in Wonderland where a fat caterpillar is smoking a lot of hookah, speaking a bunch of gobbledygook and advising me to take mushrooms so I might understand it all. Is it opposite day?