It seems that there was a perfectly valid reason to allow Wall Street firms to jump to the front of the line for H1N1 vaccines -- they needed to stay healthy so they could spend nearly $30 billion in bonuses:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s investment bank, survivors of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, are set to pay record bonuses this year.

The firms -- the three biggest banks to exit the Troubled Asset Relief Program -- will hand out $29.7 billion in bonuses, according to analysts’ estimates. That’s up 60 percent from last year and more than the previous high of $26.8 billion in 2007. The money, split among 119,000 employees, equals $250,400 each, almost five times the $50,303 median household income in the U.S. last year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

That's really, excuse the expression, rich.

But the news isn't all bad. This winter, as you struggle to ward off the swine flu so you aren't forced into
bankruptcy, take comfort in knowing that Wall Street is going to be sensitive about this:

"Wall Street is all about creating wealth, and when banks start making money again, they have to pay their people," said Michael Karp, co-founder of Options Group. "But because there’s so much public scrutiny, people will be very sensitive in terms of putting caps on some of these cash figures, and you’ll see a lot more in stock."

You see? It's not just the little guy who is suffering. Some people will have to settle for stocks. Talk about kicking someone when they're down.