Reuters reported yesterday that the annual bonuses among major American investment and commercial banks increased an average of 17 percent in 2009. Specifically, among JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley bonuses rose 31 percent. All told, employees of the banking industry in the U.S. raked in $20.3 billion, with the average bonus of $123,850.

This increase is modest compared to the 2007 records set with bonuses, but still, you know, we’re in a major recession, unemployment’s at nearly 10 percent with another 20 percent underemployed, the money used to turn the record profit of $55 billion among major banks in 2009 (three times the previous record profit) was built using taxpayer money.

You have to hand it to the banking industry; they know what they’re doing. They took a piddling trillion or so dollars and really used it to their advantage. They bought one another, they wrote off bad investments without having to take a loss. They spent a piddling $29 million to lobby Congress to fight proposed regulation that would tighten restrictions of the over-the-counter deriviatives market that garnered five of those banks $35 billion of that $55 billion total profit in 2009 and, not coincidentally, caused the current global financial crisis. The big joke: That $29 million spent on lobbyists came from taxpayer funds, since it was all thrown into the same pot anyway.

Here’s a Yes Men video of Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, held a couple of weeks ago in Davos, Switzerland. Maybe it’ll make you feel a little better, make you think twice about burning someone in effigy or taking to the streets.

Hey check out SYSK on Facebook and Twitter. There is a reasonable possibility you’ll enjoy it.