Auto Bailout: $134 an Hour for Taking Notes, Doing Research

Attorneys do even better at $645 an hour, but administrative assistants are earning a cool $134 per 60 minutes for assisting the U.S. Treasury Department with its ongoing auto bailout for General Motors and Chrysler.

And the government feigns outrage over Wall Street and banking execs making the big bucks?

Normally, reports The AM Law Daily, fees paid to law firms advising the government are blacked out (legalese: redacted) when the contracts are published, but somebody made a boo-boo in the case of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenstein’s contract to advise the government on the auto bailout.

Here you go:

Sonnenschein, which is advising the Treasury Department on the auto industry bailout, landed a six-month contract with the government in March with a maximum value of $8.59 million. The contract, posted online, shows partners will charge $645 an hour, while associates will charge $355. Legal assistants will charge $134 an hour.

With wages like that, I could show up for a half-day each week and earn more than I do now.

So, you can see the only recovery taking place in America is in government–and in their buddies in the unions and legal firms.