This certainly is nothing new. You often read about companies that layoff employees to "cut costs", then turn around and give the executives million dollar bonuses. My roommate's employer just had a second round of layoffs, and is likely to shut its doors in two weeks, yet only two months ago gave bonuses to management while denying bonuses to the rest of the company. To top it off, the CEO of this multimillion dollar bungle of a company was just given a new position in the VC division of the parent company, a promotion with pay raise. I wish I knew how to run a company into the ground and then be promoted for it.