Citigroup, under pressure since accepting bailout funds, has found a new way to keep and reward “talent.”

This week it began to issue several million stock options to a quarter of its workforce in a way that they may become extremely lucrative for the employees lucky enough to receive them.

This partly to compensate for the evaporation of the Citi stock share price, which has gone from a high of $56 a few years ago down to $4 a share.

Whats the grand plan? Citi will be issuing one stock option at just above the current price for each unvested share that employees had accumulated.  When (and unless they fail, I don’t really think it is an “if”) the share price climbs, Citigroup employees could see a sharp rise in their 2009 compensation.

The good news is this is that it excludes the top 100 earners at Citi — meaning most of those in the executive suites.

It’s a shame that their shareholders that lost a ton of money due to their reckless actions cannot get the same sweet deal.

Source: To Retain Its Bankers, Citi Offers Option Plan

According to the Huffington Post, banks that were quick to line up for the government bailouts have been busy spending a portion of the bailout funds on lobbying Congress.

Twenty-five top recipients of government bailout funds spent more than $71 million on lobbying the federal government in the year since they were rescued, an extensive review of lobbying records by the Huffington Post reveals.

A year after taxpayers forked over $700 billion to help rescue the biggest names in banking, insurance and automotive industry, those same institutions are using portions of the cash to influence legislation with a direct impact on taxpayers.

This is absolutely disgusting.  It seems like the have no representation in Washington anymore and the only way to get attention is to have lobbyists.  Now that we’ve saved these institutions from the brink of destruction, they’ve turned around and are using that money to get laws passed that are more favorable to them.

Does anyone think that these institutions want laws that restrict their activities?  Of course not!  They are using the taxpayer money received from the bailouts to pass laws that will enable them to create another bubble.