Washington (CNN) – One of President Obama’s top economic advisers took aim Sunday at the large bonuses Wall Street bankers are expected to receive soon.

“We will see in the next week or two, five-, six-digit, seven-digit, maybe even, some say, eight-digit bonuses for people in the banking industry,” CNN Chief National Correspondent John King said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “Is there a message from the Obama White House to the banks as they prepare to make these big [bonus] announcements?”

“For Heaven’s sakes people,” Christina Romer, Chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, said in response, after pausing and appearing at a loss for words. “It does seem really ridiculous. We have had to take extraordinary actions to rescue the financial system. We always did it because that’s what had to be done for the American people. No one wanted to bail out the banks just for the banks’ sake. It’s because we know that credit is the lifeblood of a modern economy.”

“You would certainly think that the financial institutions that are now doing a little better would have some sense. This big bonus season - of course it offends the American people. It offends me,” Romer also told King.

Romer was circumspect when asked about the nation’s economy which continues to struggle more than a year after the financial crisis of late 2008 threatened another depression.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) – One of the president’s top economic advisers said Sunday that the nation’s recessionary economy has begun to turn around but there’s still a ways to go to get back to economic growth.

“We did get some positive news this week,” Romer said of reports that the gross domestic product contracted just 1.0 percent in the second quarter of this year.

“The slowdown is certainly slowing down,” Romer said, comparing the second quarter GDP figure to the 6.4 percent GDP contraction in the first quarter. “But we still have a ways to go before we hit bottom and certainly it’s gonna be a long, hard slog getting out of this.”

“We, like most private forecasters, think that real GDP growth will probably turn positive before the end of the year,” Romer told CNN National Political Correspondent Jessica Yellin, ”but that’s just the first step. You’ve got to start growing again before you start adding jobs. But the other thing is you’ve got to grow quickly to really bring the unemployment rate down.”
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