I've always been of the opinion that managements pay and bonuses should be directly related to results - and should be ideally limited to a fixed multiple of the highest paid salaried employee. Top flight senior executives are hard to find and it's a competitive world out there - they need to be well remunerated - but at the same time they can't have it both ways.
These sorts of bonuses - when the US industry was already in downturn mode - are just plain obscene.
Of course, there's nothing stopping the shareholders from doing something about it and removing the culprits.