Wall Street bonuses 'shameful': Obama

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama on Thursday slammed multi-billion dollar bonuses taken by Wall Street financiers as "shameful" and "the height of irresponsibility" while taxpayers bail out their industry.

Obama told reporters after meeting Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner he had been angered to read newspaper reports that New York securities firms paid out 18.4 billion dollars in bonuses even as stock markets plunged last year.

"It is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful, and part of what we are going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility," he said.

"The American people understand that we have got a big hole we have got to dig ourselves out of but they don't like the idea that people are digging a bigger hole," Obama said after the Oval Office meeting.